Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue
by Scott Boyo
Summary: Tickling story. The Powerpuff Girls end up in one ticklish situation after another, caught in the middle of a private little war...CHAPTER 15 NOW UP. some shoujoai.
1. Just desserts

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 1: Just desserts

* * *

"Whaddya mean, YOU'RE brilliant!" Demanded the deceptively small, raven-haired girl, as she and her two sisters floated home after their latest mission.

"Well Buttercup, you've got to admit that it WAS my brilliant plan that got rid of that monster", said Blossom, flipping her long ginger hair in her sister's direction and giving her a distinctly smug look to go with it.

"Nuh-uh, Blossom", said the third sister, butting in with her cheerfully squeaky voice which, even though it had deepened as the three triplets had grown, was still higher than either of her sisters. "Me and Buttercup couldn't understand your plan, so we just hit the monster where it looked like it'd hurt the most."

"Well duh, that was what my plan was", said Blossom, the redheaded leader and academically smartest of the girls.

Buttercup managed to sputter out, "Well if that was your plan, Red, why didn't you just say that, instead of using all those big words and diagrams?"

"Huh! I can't help it if you're too dumb to follow what I'm saying!"

"Yeah, well..."

**CRASH!**

"Girls, get the brooms and sweep that up", the Professor said, pointing first to the girls, then to the broom cupboard, and then finally to the pile of small splinters of wood that lay on the ground behind them; it was all that remained of the front door, which they'd just flown through.

"Sorry daddy, we'll be more careful in future", said Bubbles as she got the brooms and she and Buttercup started sweeping up while Blossom went to get another door out of storage.

"You always say that," said their long-suffering father. Deep down, he didn't really care about the door that much. It was just a piece of wood after all, and he could easily afford to replace it on occasion when the girls broke through it without realising. He just wished that they'd pay slightly more attention to what they were doing, and then the constant replacements wouldn't be necessary.

* * *

All too soon it was time for dinner- after all, growing super-heroines need to eat. You see, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup weren't just any ordinary girls (though girls are never ordinary in their father's eyes anyway), but were in fact the Powerpuff Girls, triplets who were sworn to protect Townsville from crime and the forces of evil.

Blossom, being the brains (and many would argue, also the beauty) of the three, had been the natural choice for leader ever since their father, Professor Utonium, created them out of sugar, spice, and everything nice (plus of course, an accidental drop of Chemical X added into the mix).

Buttercup was undoubtedly considered to be the impulsive member of the three, preferring using brawn to solve her problems to sitting down and figuring out the optimal solution. What very few - except for the girls' close friends, that is - didn't realize is that she also had a much softer side to her, which included protecting Bubbles from being too scared (although she still liked to tease her 'little' sister on occasion), and the fact that she was fast becoming an accomplished flutist at Tall Oaks Middle School, where all three girls were currently attending seventh grade (they were 13 years of age).

Bubbles was always considered the 'baby' especially when compared to Buttercup and Blossom - although this was not to say that she was still the same as when they were first created. She was by no means as naïve as she had been, although she still preferred to look on the brighter side of life whenever possible, but now fully understood that there were some...less than wholesome things that also go on around the world.

All three girls had superpowers - super speed, strength, the ability to fly, fire laser beams from their eyes and take sickening amounts of physical punishment with barely a scratch on them. However, each girl had also developed her own, unique powers too as the years went by. Bubbles' powers were linked to communication - she could converse in any known language with complete fluency, and her "sonic scream" could temporarily incapacitate even the most powerful of super-villains and monsters; this ability had grown even more powerful over time, and it's effect could now stretch for miles around.

Blossom's powers were connected to heat - she could breathe fire or ice at will, and directly control the ambient temperature of her immediate surroundings. As a result of this, she also had increased resistance to sudden temperature changes, be they as the result of her own manipulation or from some outside source. The previous year, she had narrowly averted a nuclear meltdown when she had managed to successfully freeze the state power plant solid in mid-explosion.

Buttercup's power was related to motion - she had always been the fastest puff, right from the start, so this was only natural. She could, at will, speed up her rate of molecular vibration to such a point where the rest of the universe seemed to have become frozen in time. This allowed her, when necessary, to perform complex tasks in the blink of an eye, but was a big drain on her energy; hyper-accelerating for even one hour (from her point of view - one second to everyone else) would leave her physically drained for the next two or three days.

"Yum - what's for dinner dad? Smells nice, whatever it is" said Buttercup as she flew into the kitchen, closely followed by both her sisters, all three just having washed and changed after their earlier battle with a giant putty-monster.

"Well, I thought we'd have one of Bubbles' favourites tonight, so I made us all Broccoli pie!" said the Professor, pulling a still-steaming pie from the oven, to the disgust of Buttercup and faint nausea of Blossom.

"Did I say it smelt nice? I stand corrected," muttered Buttercup to Blossom as Bubbles smacked her lips hungrily.

"Yeah, just 'cos Bubbles is a vegetarian doesn't mean we have to go hungry" grumbled Blossom in agreement.

So they sat down to a dinner of broccoli pie and lentils. And if looks could kill, then Bubbles with her superpowers would have been at the very least severely maimed.

Somehow, all three girls managed to clear their plates - although in Blossom and especially in Buttercup's cases this involved surreptitiously flinging some of their food out of the bay-door windows overlooking the back garden - and the Professor had a special treat for them.

"As you girls ate all of your dinner without any fuss," Buttercup kicked Bubbles under the table, whilst making sick-faces at her as the Professor was rummaging around in the freezer, "I thought we'd have some double chocolate choc-chip ice cream for dessert.

"Are you sure that's a good idea daddy, I mean it's not very healthy is it?" asked Bubbles, which resulted in being kicked by both Blossom and Buttercup under the table this time, and a barely repressed wince from Bubbles.

"True. But this is a special treat, not a regular occurrence, Bubbles. And I thought you liked chocolate, right?"

"Well yes daddy, of course I do," she said, trying to kick Buttercup back, but just swinging her leg at empty air. Buttercup just grinned smugly at her as the Professor served up the ice cream and passed the bowls out. "Thanks, da-" Bubbles started to say, when suddenly she felt her foot connect with something under the table. She quickly tried to pull back, but found that she couldn't; her foot was now trapped by whatever it was. And Buttercup's grin had just grown wider, as she drew Blossom attention down to where she was one-handedly gripping Bubbles' ankle. Blossom and Buttercup shared a secretive grin, and Bubbles suddenly knew what she had just unintentionally gotten herself into.

With Blossom sitting opposite the Professor at the square dining table, with Bubbles and Buttercup to her left and respectively, and with Buttercup holding Bubbles foot with one hand out of the Professor's line of sight beneath the tablecloth, Blossom decided the time for revenge over having to eat broccoli pie was right. She cautiously let her right hand wander down beneath the table and begin the arduous task of quietly undoing Bubbles' shoe so as not to alert their father to any mischief.

Bubbles was becoming increasingly worried, as she knew what her sisters were about to do but had no recourse except to sit there and take it - if she involved the Professor, they'd just get her twice as much after dinner and with even less mercy. So she just sat there and enjoyed her ice cream as best she could through her growing apprehension, as she felt Blossom's hand fiddling with her shoe buckle and then slowly drawing the shoe away from her foot, caressing the skin lightly as she did so, causing Bubbles to sigh softly as she resigned herself to her fate and let the sensations take control. As it was warm summer weather in Townsville at the time, the girls had all chosen not to wear tights, and instead opted to go around barefoot inside their customary Mary Janes. She wiggled her toes nervously as the relatively cool air greeted her now totally bare foot.

As the girls had matured, the Professor had foregone asking how their collective day had been, as he knew that they all liked to do things separately rather than be treated as a single unit. Buttercup's responses were usually limited to "OK" or "not bad", or on especially good days, "Today's been great, dad!" However, if asked in the early morning how she was feeling, she would simply mumble in response.

Blossom's answers were usually far longer than necessary, as she had not only on occasion tried to swallow a dictionary, but had actually managed it; the Professor had once invented a machine to increase people's word skills - it's effect on Blossom was to transform her speech into something resembling Mojo's Jojo's repetitive style (though by no means as severe as Mojo Jojo suffered when under incredible mental or physical stress).

For this reason, the Professor only asked either Blossom or Buttercup about their day if he was feeling particularly up to the challenge of dealing with the answer. However, he could usually understand Bubbles' answers, so his question was directed almost solely (no pun intended) to Bubbles: "So Bubbles, how was your day?"

"Oh, umm, it was pretty goo..." Bubbles began, but then trailed off as a single finger from Blossom's right hand stroked ever-so-gently up her sole before travelling back down her arch. Bubbles gasped slightly and bit her lip to stifle a giggle.

"Hmm?" Professor Utonium enquired as he looked up from his own bowl of ice cream which was already three-quarters empty, wondering why Bubbles had stopped mid-sentence. He couldn't understand why she seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh all of a sudden.

"Yeah Bubz. Tells us more," Buttercup added, jumping into the conversation, trying to get Bubbles talking again so they could turn her words into giggles when she least expected it. Bubbles again tried to extricate her foot from the dark-haired puff's grip, but the angle was completely wrong to do so. And Blossom's light tickling was slowly robbing her of her usual strength.

"Well, uh...lemme see...this morning we had aaaaaart..."at that moment, Blossom had moved to tickle under her toes, and had begun to pick up the pace somewhat. Bubbles was striving to hold back her giggles as long as possible, but knew her attempt would be fruitless. No fruit for Bubbles, not this time.

"...and of course I enjoyed...hehe...that, 'cos I got to draw...lots of cute, f-f-f-furry animals...haha..."

Her eyes were pleading with her sisters now, asking them to go lightly on her though she knew they wouldn't, not once they got started. It had long been common knowledge to Blossom and Buttercup that Bubbles was extremely ticklish; Blossom and Buttercup were also extremely sensitive, though not to the same degree as the publicly acclaimed "Joy and the laughter" of the three.

Bubbles tried squirming around, in the hope that she could wriggle her foot free of Buttercup's grasp and escape Blossom's tickling fingers. But unfortunately, she couldn't concentrate enough to manage this and just managed to bounce around in her seat as the tickling progressed and she felt more and more giggles welling up inside of her.

"Then we

plahahahayed dodgeball at lunch, and I won 'cos...hehehe...Blossom tripped and knocked into BC a...and they both got hihihihit by the ball...hahaha..."

That was possibly the very worst thing Bubbles could've said at that moment as Blossom was mercilessly tickling around her toes. She moved back down again and started to write, with all five of her fingers, in the middle of Bubbles' sole "Bubbles is a very ticklish, naughty girl". Bubbles foot was shaking quite strongly by now, although it clearly wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and her toes were wiggling frantically in some feeble attempt to dispel the tickly sensations.

"...and then we got called out of aftern...afternoon lessons 'cos of the putty m-m-monster...hehehehehe...Daddy, can I be, hahaahaahaaa, excused?"

At this, Blossom put her spoon down and brought her left hand into the fray as she began to tickle along the back of Bubbles' knee as well. They were caught out now - when Bubbles didn't get up, their dad would know what was going on - so they might as well make the most of it in the remaining seconds. Buttercup also started stroking all around Bubbles foot with her other hand, determined were they to break Bubbles and make her laugh out loud before she could escape the table.

"Oh god...it tihihihihiiickles...heheheheheeeee...hahahahaaa...quit it, guys...hey, no fair, not all at...eeeee! HahahahHAHAHAHA!" Finally, Bubbles managed to twist her leg and give it a sharp yank that caused the entire table to wobble momentarily, and Buttercup's glass of milk to spill over. Before the Professor could even begin to scold Buttercup for being so careless with her drink, Bubbles was gone in a streak of baby blue light, heading straight to her bedroom to retrieve a spare pair of shoes, as she had had to leave her other shoe behind under the dining table. While she had the time alone in her room (the Professor had separated their room into three smaller, but still each quite large rooms 2 years before) without her sisters coming in to bug her, she sat down on the bed and begun to think over what had just happened, before setting out the day's events in her diary.


	2. Fun and Games before bed: Bubbles

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 2: Fun and games before bed - Bubbles

* * *

Bubbles just sat there on her bed for a moment or two, deep in thought about what exactly she was going to write for today's daily entry, and settled her breathing after all the unexpected exertion she had just had. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed in the lotus position, her right foot still bare from her meal-time encounter with her sister's hands, with her diary open to a fresh blank page in front of her and a spare pair of Mary Janes placed neatly to her side.

Bubbles chewed on her pen quietly as she listened to sounds coming from the kitchen of the Professor telling Buttercup off, and Blossom actually for once standing up for the impetuous girl; after all, Blossom had been partially to blame herself, so she was making herself feel less guilty by trying to get Buttercup off the hook. Finally, everything downstairs quietened down and the sound of the television being turned on could be heard, so Bubbles tuned out all the noise and started writing in her diary.

Dear Diary,

Today's been another great day! I drew loads of pictures of cute 'n furry animals, in art class, then I had to sit through a math lesson (what is the point of math, anyway? Especially algebra, which we've just started; all those x's and y's - we're never gonna use that stuff in real life, are we?). Then we had lunch, and I beat Blossom AND Buttercup at dodge-ball when Buttercup tripped and slammed into Blossom - it looked like it maybe hurt them a little (not really), but it gave me a clear shot at both of them to win the game. HAHA! That'll teach 'em to gang up on me. :)  
Then we'd just started afternoon lessons - my second favourite of all lessons, Drama, when the hotline called; Blossom answered it, as usual (doesn't she always?), and we found out it was a putty monster - the hard way; we ended up getting stuck for a little while. So while Blossom was going of about one of her comli copl difficult plans, Buttercup grabbed her from behind and squeezed so she blew ice breath at the monster and then we smashed it with a few quick punches and kicks to the chest. And then she goes and says that that's what she wanted us to do all along! The cheek:(  
So then we get back home and wash up, and Daddy made my favourite for dinner - broccoli pie! Yummy; but I don't think Blossom and Buttercup liked it, 'cos Blossom was pulling faces the whole time and Buttercup kept flinging bits out the window when she thought I wasn't looking. O well...  
And then they decided to get me back for me having such a good day by grabbing my leg and tickling me all over my foot - they're mean; they KNOW how ticklish I am, and that we'd've all gotten in trouble if the Professor had caught us playing around at the dinner table. Luckily, he was too busy scarfing down his double chocolate choc-chip ice cream to notice that I couldn't stop laughing the whole time; I'm sure some of my ice cream ended up on the table from laughing so much. At least Buttercup got in trouble for spilling her milk - well, I spilt it as I escaped, but she deserved it. :)  
Funny thing is, even though I didn't want them to do that to me, it felt kinda nice, the laughing and the gentle way they tickled my foot - well, at least until they decided to pull out all the stops. I wonder what it feels like to tickle yourself...?

At this point, Bubbles put down her pen and thought about what she'd just written. As she did so, she suddenly heard loud, completely unrestrained laughter issuing forth from downstairs. Her super-hearing pinned it down to the couch in the lounge, and the pitch of the laughter clearly told her that Buttercup was the one laughing; a few minutes later, a slightly higher-pitched voice joined her in this uproarious laughter; obviously Blossom. Probably the two of them were having another one of their semi-regular tickle contests/fights. The Professor, Bubbles thought, was most likely down in his lab which, due to the constant pandemonium in the house these days whenever the girls were indoors and awake, he had had specially soundproofed.

Bubbles felt safe up here in her room, with their father busy and her sisters otherwise engaged downstairs, but just to be on the safe side, she also closed and locked her bedroom door, for absolute privacy while she tried a little experiment.

Bubbles quickly flew under her bed and pulled out a large, fairly ordinary-looking book and dropped it on top of her blankets before sitting back down in her previous lotus position, one foot still bare. Then she opened this new book to reveal a large assortment of different feathers.

For a years now, Bubbles had been fascinated with the differences between how birds flew and how she and her sisters flew, including how feathers have an effect on a bird's ability to fly. Therefore, whenever she could, she would take a single feather from a bird (always being careful not to remove a vital flight feather), so that she could examine them in the comfort of her own home and marvel at their natural beauty. Now though, she was going to put these feathers to a different use.

She quickly selected a short-ish brown feather with small white spots on it, which had probably previously belonged to an owl of some kind (the feathers were labelled by the type of bird, but the ink had smeared in the intense heat of the intervening summers. All she could make out was '...Owl...'). Then, she held the feather poised over her bare right foot, splayed her toes wide, closed her eyes, took a deep relaxing breath, and then stroked the feather gently from heel to between her big and second toes.

The sensation that she experienced from this simple reaction was nothing like she had expected it to be - what she had expected was the same almost irresistible urge to laugh and squirm as she had felt downstairs when Blossom and Buttercup had tickled her, and all those other times before, too. Instead, all she felt was a light tingling on her sole and a distinct need to scratch an itch.

"Oh pooh!" she exclaimed. Bubbles had been hoping to be able to tickle herself - then she would be able to experience all the joy and the laughter of being tickled without having to trust blindly that the person tickling wouldn't take it too far. "Blossom was right again; I can't tickle myself. But what if...?"

As Bubbles thought hard on ways around this problem, she didn't pay any attention to the fact that she was still absent-mindedly stroking the feather up and down her foot, and had in fact now progressed to drawing figure eight's across her sole repeatedly, interspersed with equally light feather-caresses of her flexed arch. As her train of thought began to wander still more, her toes began to wriggle as if of their own accord, which was actually the case.

Very soon, her breathing started to become louder and more pronounced as the tingling sensation graduated to an actual tickling feeling on the sole of her foot. Her foot, and indeed her whole leg began to twitch as it was in an awkward position for such sudden movements. Still, Bubbles was trying to think of ways in which she might be able to tickle herself, but now not only could she not think of anything that would work, but she found that there were some very distracting feelings shooting up her body from her still trapped and tickled right foot. She looked down and her eyes widened in surprised at what she saw.

It was like something out of a science-fiction movie, or possibly horror instead. Her left arm had taken on a life of its' own and was quite animatedly stroking the feather up and down her foot, which couldn't escape the torture, but not for lack of trying. Her foot was squirming all over the place, stuck as it was resting on her left thigh, and her toes wouldn't stop wiggling around, trying to evade the feather and at the same time push it and the tickling sensations away. Her gentle, relaxed breathing had by now become breathless gasping as she tried to suck in enough oxygen to stop herself fainting, and the occasional giggle was beginning to slip out in between pants for air.

"I...I don't...belieeeeeve it...hehe...I'm actu...ally ticklihihihing myself...hahaha...But how?...heeheehee...this is supposed to be...haahaa...impossihihihible."

Clearly though, it wasn't impossible, as the feelings shooting from her foot to her brain, accompanied by the laughter that was issuing from her, testified. Strangely, her left arm felt numb, as though she had been sleeping on it overnight, and the circulation was cut off. It seemed quite reasonable to Bubbles to assume that it was in fact being controlled by her subconscious mind, which wished to explore tickling more fully without having to rely on another person. Or rather, it would have, if Bubbles had been able to sting together a coherent thought at this point. In fact though, all Bubbles was able to do was giggle sweetly as the stroking of her sole and toes continued.

(A/N: No, she's not being mind-controlled by Him or anyone else. If you could tickle yourself without your conscious mind knowing exactly what's going on, this could happen.)

While all this was going on, her right arm had been hanging by her side, gradually growing more numb as well since all the air Bubbles could breathe in was going into keeping her from fainting of exhaustion. What she didn't realise through her continuous giggling fit was that the fingers of this hand suddenly came to life, and then snuck across her stomach and into her left armpit before she could do anything to stop it. Not that there was actually anything she could do anyway, of course.

"Nooooohohohoho, what's going on, what...heeheehee...what do you think hahaha you're hahahaha dohohohohoing? No, pleeeeeease stohohohohohop thahahahat...no, oh noooo please please please not...eeee! Not my armpit! Plehehehehease, not there nonononoooooooOOOOO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA OGOD OGOD OGOD OGOD OOOOOHAHAHAHAAHA...I CAN'T...CAHAHAHAN'T STAHAAHAHAHAND IHIHIHIHIT...HEHEHEHEHEHE!"

Indeed, it seemed that Bubbles very possibly couldn't stand it. The ferocity of the initial attacked by her self-animated right arm on her left armpit was such that she somehow managed to unfold her legs, but of course you can't run away from your arms any more than you can escape your shadow (though at least with your shadow you can turn a light on), and try as she might, Bubbles' twisting and turning - she was very flexible and agile, being an above average ballroom dancer - did nothing to help her, as her hands always found her vulnerable spots. She tried curling herself tight into a ball to protect against her tickling hands (they were in fact a little more vicious at tickling her than Blossom or Buttercup would be, but she still felt she could better trust her own hands than somebody else's), but her left hand managed to squeeze into the ball and started stroking around her stomach before delving into her belly button, which elicited many delighted/tortured squeals of enjoyment/defeat and caused her to arch back as far she could - in the process, causing her remaining shoe, which was already loose, to come flying off and fall to the floor on the far side of the room - so that her heels were resting against the back of her own head, while her right hand slid down her ribcage (counting each individual rib as it went, which also tickled her more than she'd previously thought possible), and then moved on down to go behind her knee, causing her leg to bend even tighter back on itself in an effort to push the fingers away, and her feet to press ever harder against the back of her head, her toes curled tight and her feet rubbing against her hair, producing yet more tickly feelings in her soles, even though both hands were tickling elsewhere on her tender body.

She was delirious with laughter and unable to protect herself from all the tickling going on; moreover, she could no longer even tell well she was being tickled, as the sensations seemed to linger in that way they do so that it felt like many more than just her own two hands were now tickling her all over her body.

And, logically, she had no attacker to plead to for mercy, as she was in fact tickle-attacking herself, and very effectively at that. Finally, the tickling was taking such a toll on her that her vision began to blur, first with tears of laughter and then from drowsiness caused by lack of air. Her robust laughter was being forced out at such a rate now that it morphed into the silent laughter of a victim who is almost spent, and she almost totally stopped wriggling and squirming, trying to evade what was happening, and just gave in completely.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA...HEHEHEHEHE, THAT TICKLESSSSS...TOOOHOHOHOHO TICKLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISH...HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE...HAAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAA...giggle...gasp...pant, pant..."

As both hands zeroed in once more on her feet, arguably her most ticklish spot of all (at least from her sisters' point of view, and they had proven their debate many times, so they should know what they were talking about), which were now hopelessly tangled in her long (and now loose) blond and surprisingly effective as a tickle weapon hair, something in her mind said "OK, enough is enough" and stopped.

Bubbles, however, took another 6 minutes before her laughter completely died away.

Once she had regained full control of her body (and spent about 20 minutes untangling her hair from around her feet), she sat back up and started writing in her diary once more:

Dear Diary,

I just had the most amazing experience! I tried to tickle myself, which smartypants Miss Blossom said is impossible to do, but while I was thinking of a way to do it and make it actually tickle me, my hand started tickling me of its own accord! It was wonderful - I've never laughed so hard in my life (even when my sister's tickle me) and I never enjoyed it as much before either.  
But all this has done is make me obssessed with being tickled - I don't get enough time on my own during the day to do this sort of thing without Blossom or Buttercup butting in (haha- Buttercup butting in - maybe that should be Buttercup BUTTercupING in... J).  
I know! I could do it at night - but I'd have to be careful about waking the others. What I really need is somewhere they couldn't hear me...likethedangergrid! Of course - that's it! And then I wouldn't need to tickle myself either, I could program a simulation to tickle me. I need to start making plans for tonight, after the others are asleep...  
Gotta go now, I can hear Blossom and Buttercup coming upstairs; one of them might see you and decide to nose around in my private thoughts...

Love, Bubbles XXX


	3. Fun and Games before bed: Blossom and Bu...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 3: Fun and games before bed - Blossom & Buttercup

* * *

Meanwhile, downstairs...

"Buttercup, what have I told you before about being more careful, especially around easily breakable glass at the dinner table?"

Buttercup was working her jaw up and down so fast that it almost created a unexpected gust of wind, and yet still no sounds were coming out of her mouth. She just couldn't work out how she was getting the blame, even more so as their father had been too busy reading one of his scientific journals at the dinner table to pay attention to anything his daughters were doing.

"But dad, I didn't do it - Bubbles did!"

"Yeah dad, Bubbles did it, not Buttercup!" Blossom agreed, to Buttercup's even further amazement. Buttercup caught a brief glimpse of a look on Blossom's face saying _This is equally my fault_, and sent her redheaded "older" sibling a silent thank-you.

"What do you mean? What does Bubbles have to do with it?" asked the Professor, now totally confused at Blossom openly supporting Buttercup over Blossom. To the best of his knowledge, this was a unique occurrence.

And so Blossom explained everything that had happened at dinner to their father, leaving no detail out, and with Buttercup lending a hand whenever Blossom just ran out of words in mid-sentence. Finally, they finished their explanation, expecting Professor Utonium to get angry once again at both of them.

Instead, however, Professor Utonium simply said, whilst trying to keep a straight face, "So, you like to tickle Bubbles often?"

"Well, yeah - well I do anyway", said Buttercup, grinning once again. "She's just such an easy target, y'know?"

Blossom also began to brighten up once more, as she realised that they didn't seem to be in any real trouble "Does this mean you're not mad at us, then?"

"No of course not," said the Professor, calming down again and looking at Blossom and Buttercup with a look of deep fatherly affection. "It was just an accident after all, and it was all a bit of harmless fun." The girls relaxed completely at that statement. "Just try not to do it near any breakables in future, okay?"

"Okay Dad"

* * *

"Phew, that was close. I thought dad was gonna flip for sure!" Buttercup muttered to Blossom as the two of them flew into the lounge. "What's on TV, Bloss?"

"I dunno; why don't you try finding out? That's what the TV guide is for, after all!" pointed out Blossom, poking Buttercup playfully. Then she realised something, and added, "and don't call me 'Bloss'!" giving Buttercup a quick tickle around the waist to punctuate the end of the sentence.

Naturally, since they were sisters, they had had the occasional brief moments of tickling between them over the years, and so Blossom knew that the waist was one of Buttercups 'weak' spots. Buttercup, who wasn't expecting such an unprovoked attacked, could do nothing to defend herself against it and simply doubled over, bursting into a series of loud belly laughs.

"Whate...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...hey, quit ihihihihihittt BloHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! STOHAHAHAHAP PLEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEEEEASE...?"

After only 30 seconds of this treatment, Buttercup had gone bright red in the face from being forced to laugh so hard, and collapsed back onto the couch, panting desperately for air and still hunched over in case of a repeat tickle-attack from her flame-haired sister, who was grinning at being able to so easily overpower the 'toughest fighter'.

What is more, Blossom said as much to Buttercup, and added for good measure, "just be glad that none of this city's supervillains know about your greatest weakness, Buttercup. You'd be the laughing stock of Townsville, literally, for ever."

"Yeah OK, I'll admit I'm ticklish, 'cos it's true", Buttercup grumbled, "and anyway, Bubbles is way more ticklish than I am". Blossom conceded to this point - on more than one occasion the two sisters had ganged up on Bubbles, pinned her down, and tickled her senseless all over just out of sheer boredom.

Then an energy-saving light-bulb came on slowly over Buttercup's head. "But everyone's ticklish, to some degree at least. At least I can admit it."

"What do you mean?" asked Blossom, innocently. "I'm not ticklish"

"Oh come off it Leader Girl" shot back Buttercup, the idea of watching television now long-forgotten as she prepared to issue her challenge to her sister in an attempt to whittle away at some of her famed overconfidence. "I know for a fact that you're just as ticklish as I am."

"Yeah?" Buttercup nodded her head vigorously. "Then prove it. Name one time when you tickled me". That stumped Buttercup - try as hard as she might, she couldn't think of a single instance, and not for lack of trying; Blossom had always been either the tickler, or an onlooker in such a situation - never the one getting the raw end of the deal. Buttercup reckoned that this was because of her naturally controlling nature, and being tickled by definition means losing control of yourself to someone else, ceding power to them; and that was something that Blossom seemed definitely not to like doing, past experience had taught Buttercup. Even when Blossom had fallen ill with chickenpox the previous summer, she had still been in the thick of the crime-fighting action, as she absolutely refused to let Buttercup take her leader position, even temporarily.

"...Okay, so I can't", said Buttercup, causing Blossom to smirk victoriously. "But that doesn't mean that you're not, does it?"

"Alright," said Blossom, getting an idea of her own, "I'll take up your challenge - on one condition; I get to tickle you before you get to tickle me. The one who can go longest before saying "Mercy" wins. Agree?"

An almost evil-looking smile grew on Buttercup's face as she shook hands on the deal with Blossom. "So how do we go about this then?" she asked. "D'ya want me - hang on a minute; why am I going first anyway? How can I trust that you'll stop when I say the word?"

"What? Don't you trust your own sister, dearest Buttercup?" Blossom asked with a fairly sickly-sweet expression. They made quick work of pushing the furniture back against the walls, so as to make a decent floor space in which to carry out their contest. Buttercup then lay on the floor, on her back, with her shoes discarded and her arms and legs stretched out in an X shape.

Blossom knelt down by Buttercup's now bare, and nervously fidgeting, feet, and glanced up at the clock, to see when the minute started.

"Shouldn't I be tied up if we're gonna do this properly?" asked Buttercup

"Nope. I'd've thought that'd be much more uncomfortable, and anyway, if you escape the tickling, that's as good as giving up. And I'm just gonna use the clock - three...two...one."

Blossom waited until the second hand reached its' zenith, and then the challenge began in earnest. She began to very gently stroke around Buttercup's toes on both feet, before wiggling her fingers very lightly on their fleshy undersides.

"Oh please, Bloss. If this is meant to be a proper contest, shouldn't you get straight down to business? You're wasting valuable seconds here, y'know."

"I know what I'm doing, thank you", said Blossom, concentrating on what she was doing to Buttercup's feet. She softly pitter-pattered her fingertips against the arches next for a few seconds, then moved to the heels for a few seconds, then onto the sole in random patterns, and then back to underneath the toes. Then she began all over again, but travelling around the parts of the foot in a different order, so that Buttercup couldn't know what to expect next.

"You see, if I start off slowly, then I can break your will that much quicker, as you'll wear yourself out more trying to resist laughing and squirming." "That won't work" said Buttercup, with absolute confidence in her powers of concentration. "It's all a case of mind over matter; and if I don't mind, then it don't matter." Blossom just shook her head at that corny line, and continued the caressing of Buttercup's feet at the same leisurely rate, paying close attention to see if they were reacting to her touch in any way, and to attempt to locate the most sensitive spots.

Just as she went to move back under the toes yet again, her hand slipped and her fingers instead stroked against the tops of Buttercup's toes. This was unfortunate for Buttercup, as even though she was trying to block out the screaming of her feet's nerve endings, her toes spontaneously twitched at the light touch. It was such a slight movement that Buttercup didn't even notice it...

...however, Blossom did. A dreamy grin made its' first appearance as she knew that she had found a true weakness. Sudden, unexpected tickle attacks are easy for getting the victim to laugh, but breaking them is quite another matter entirely, and part of this is achieved by overcoming their resistance, rather than bypassing it completely (which is what happens with unexpected tickling). She continued to pitter-patter gently all over Buttercup's feet, and even around her ankles on occasion, but kept returning to this spot, causing much self-restrained movement and Buttercup's breath to hitch in her throat.

After the third or fourth pass over this sensitive spot, Buttercup noticed that something had changed in Blossom's tactics down below, and begun to get the smallest bit worried about what this could mean. Of course, she wasn't going to let Blossom know that though.

"See, still nothing Bloss. O what a shame, 3 minutes gone already and you haven't even got me laughing yet, let alone begging for mercy. You are SO gonna lose this contest that it's not even funny. But I'm still gonna make you laugh anyway."

"Your jokes are so lame, BC. And if this really isn't getting to you, then neither will...this!"

With that, Blossom moved back up to the tops of Buttercup's toes and stroked the skin softly, but also continuously, moving across the toes and back again on both feet at once. Buttercup's toes shifted again, but because Blossom didn't move from her toes, the effect of the tickling started to build, and surprisingly quickly at that. Very soon, her toes were wiggling non-stop, and Blossom' grin grew wider as she let herself get lost in the tickling of her "little" sister's feet.

Buttercup could just about see Blossom's facial expression, and was stunned into sputtering out "You...you're getting off on doing this, aren't ya? Blossom?"

Blossom snapped back to reality, having heard Buttercup's question at some subconscious level. "Of course not; don't be so absurd!" But the heat growing in her cheeks betrayed the truth of the matter, and she wiggled her fingers faster over Buttercup's feet now to distract her from pursuing this line of thought any further, the slow weakening process over; it was time to get BC screaming and begging.

This caught Buttercup off-guard for a moment, but only for a moment, before she hardened her resolve and set her facial muscles firm so as not to give anything away. She couldn't, however, stop the constant movement of her toes and feet, which were now trying to move away from Blossom's fingers, but not far enough to actually get away from them, as she tried to hold them in place; she wasn't about to lose this contest to her tickle-freak of a sister, dammit, even if it did tickle like crazy. Her breathing was becoming heavier she was trying striving not to hyperventilate. She knew that once the dam broke and the laughter flowed free, there would be no stopping it.

Blossom wasn't about to give her a break though, as she moved up and began tickling Buttercup now behind her left knee, while her left hand still tickled around the toes of the right foot. This change of style came so out of the blue that Buttercup wasn't able to gather her defences against it, and a half-squeal, half-yelp escaped from her before she could reign it back in, along with a sudden jerking of her entire left leg, even as she tried to hold it against Blossom's tickling fingers. As Blossom smirked at her sister, knowing it was only a matter of time now before she cracked, Buttercup fought to recover her composure, at least on the surface. Inside her head was a different matter entirely, however.

Buttercup had always hated to be tickled - being ticklish was a physical weakness, and she had spent her whole life training to overcome and eradicate her physical weaknesses; but this one couldn't be overcome or removed, so she did her best at all times to avoid being the one being tickled. Hence, turning attention to Bubbles, who didn't seem to mind it too much.

On the other hand, if she conceded her time, then Blossom may win and she wasn't about to let Blossom win if there was anything that could be done about it. And as Blossom had never been tickled (to her knowledge, anyway), she couldn't necessarily trust that she'd be able to break Leader Girl quickly, so she needed to last for every second that she could. Every second increased her chances of winning.

While this battle was going on internally, her body had given in to the tickling almost entirely; everything from the waist down was now twitching madly, as if she was experiencing a seizure. She could feel the laughter welling up inside her chest, and she was pounding her fists uselessly against the carpeted floor. So weakened by the tickling was she, that she couldn't even find enough strength to make the floorboards wobble.

Blossom worked her fingers bit by bit in between Buttercup's toes, and found to her great joy that this area was even more ticklish still. Buttercup's chest was heaving violently as she tried hopelessly to suppress the laughter that would inevitably break free from her. Buttercup's lips were pressed tightly together - she wouldn't talk for fear of being unable to hold in the laughter whilst doing so. So Blossom took the opportunity to engage in a one-sided conversation with her sister, and tease her into breaking her own concentration.

"Coochie coochie coo, Buttercup. You like this don't you? 'Cos you're not trying to stop me, so that MUST mean that you like it a lot, right? How does this feel, ickle Butterball?"

Buttercup wanted to tell her exactly where she could go and what she could do when she got there, but didn't want to risk it. It was at exactly that moment that the pressure inside her finally reached breaking point, and the constant tickling sensations on her entire lower half became too much to handle anymore.

She grimaced, knowing what was coming, as inevitable as death or taxes.

Only a moment later, that grimace had transformed into a massive grin.

Then a small, muffled giggle slipped out from between her teeth.

It was followed by a loud staccato burst of gut-wrenching belly laughs that caused Buttercup's entire body to convulse and flip over, so that she was now lying on her front on the ground.

Seconds after, the laughter had settled down to fairly constant round of "heeheehee"'s, which left Blossom wondering how she was getting enough air to stay conscious. She was enjoying the fact that she had finally blown away all of Buttercup's mental tickling defences to such an extent that she didn't notice she had lightened the tickling and that Buttercup had regained enough presence of mind to stage an uprising.

Buttercup stretched her legs backs and managed to connect with Blossom's body - her feet ending up pressed into Blossom's stomach. The instant the feet connected with their target, still rapidly wriggling from Blossom's very effective tickling, Blossom doubled over, now too laughing forcefully in her higher-pitched voice, and jumped in the air a few inches from the startling retaliation. Her first thought was "well, Buttercup's given up finally, YAY!", and her second thought was "aaaargh, no fahahahahahair!" which she also voiced. She stepped up her own tickling - now unable to attack Buttercup's feet (they were buried deep in her lap) - she stretched forward to tickle Buttercup behind both knees, but instead lost her balance and fell to the side.

Both girls scrambled to their feet in an effort to be prepared for any sudden movements from the other; they stood at the same time, circling the centre of the room, looking for a weak spot on the other to exploit without exposing herself any more than absolutely necessary.

Blossom made the first move, striking out with both arms to tickle Buttercup up and down her ribcage; having already been weakened by the earlier tickling assault she'd had to endure, Buttercup's sensitivity was sure to have been heightened and as such she, Blossom, should have a clear advantage, she reasoned.

Wrong.

Blossom may have been smarter, but Buttercup knew her sister too well, and was ever so slightly stronger in hand-to-hand combat. She flew into the air, catching Blossom's wrists between her clenched together knees, spun herself through 180º so that she appeared to be hanging in the air by her feet, and plunged her hands into Blossom's waiting underarms.

Blossom squealed long and loudly before collapsing to her knees in a fit of uncontrollable giggles, and couldn't concentrate enough to conceive of any sort of comeback against the toughest fighter.

"Eeeeeeeeeee!...heeheeheeheeee...hahahahahammmmmmmpppppph!"

Suddenly, she realised that something was wrong; she was still laughing, but sounds were no longer coming out as they had been before. Then it dawned on her the reason for this; one of Buttercup's still-bare feet had landed on her face and was pressed hard over her mouth and nose. Her first semi-coherent thought was "Eeew! Gross! Well, at least they've had time to air out a bit", and her second thought, which was of much more import to this narration, was "Aha!"

The reason for that "Aha!" was simple, as Blossom, lacking free movement of her arms and hands, was severely at a disadvantage to counter Buttercup's tickling of her extremely ticklish form. However now, her deliverance was within reach and, suppressing her own gag reflexes, she stuck out her tongue and...

"What the...? Ewww, gross sister!" Buttercup exclaimed with force, before the tongue on her foot moved from her sole to swirling around her toes, and even though she still thought it was gross, was unable to voice the opinion anymore as what she was about to say was supplanted by an irrepressible urge to laugh; so that's precisely what she did.

As Buttercup put most of her effort into not weakening herself with too much laughter, and also not gagging at the idea of Blossom licking her foot, she worked her other foot underneath Blossom's chin and forced her head back, so that the redheaded beauty couldn't lick/tickle her foot as easily. Then she started working her extremely dextrous toes (in another life, Buttercup could have been an Olympic gymnast) very delicately into Blossom's neck and behind her ears, further preventing her from very effectively licking Buttercup's foot in between chuckling, and finally stopping her outright as the chuckles increased.

This last bout of laughter from Blossom had caused her T-shirt to ride up away from her skirt, exposing her midriff right in front of Buttercup's face; and Buttercup, never being one to pass up a free opportunity, took it with both hands - or rather, with her lips, as both her hands were otherwise engaged in Blossom's underarms. For what she preceded to do was to blow a series of large raspberries on Blossom's unprotected belly, which made Blossom throw Buttercup off of her and curl into a foetal position, still gasping for breath.

"AAAAAAAaaaa! AHAHAHAHAHA...no no pleheeheeheehahahahaha...oh GOOOOODDDDDDDD!"

Buttercup just smirked at the turn of events and looked up briefly at the clock - it had already been 20 minutes. "So," she said, grinning victoriously at Blossom's cowering form, "you gonna admit you're more ticklish than me now, or what?"

At first, Blossom looked like she was going to refuse the demand, at least until Buttercup made as if to remove her shoes, at which she crawled away, still giggling somewhat hysterically.

"Nooooo! Please, anything but that. OK, so I'll admit that I'm more ticklish than you, but Bubbles is still way more ticklish than both of us combined!"

That earnt her a genuine, not tickle-induced laugh from Buttercup.

* * *

Over two hours later, at about 10:30pm, both Bubbles and Buttercup had just finished washing up and had gone to bed in their separate rooms. As the Professor came upstairs, having decided to have himself an early night, he noticed that the light was still on in Blossom's room, and he could hear the rapid clacking of fingers on a keyboard.

"Honey, are you going to go to sleep soon?"

"Sure dad, I'm just gonna finish up what I'm writing, and then I'll go to bed."

"That's good, dear." And the Professor went into his own room and went to bed, completely oblivious to his daughter's continued online activity. Blossom finished typing up her diary entry for the day in her electronic diary and then copied and pasted the pertinent sections of it into her post to be put online. Then she submitted the post to the "Tickling Media Forum" - post number 1239 according to "IluvdePPG"'s profile, and after closing down the computer and turning out the lights, and setting her alarm to 4am, lay in bed planning her regular spot of midnight fun in the danger grid.

* * *

A little later still, Buttercup was also lying awake in bed, listening for any stray sounds around the house that may indicate movement by her family. She decided to catch a few hours sleep first, before sneaking down to the danger grid and starting her nightly bit of tickling fun. She rolled over and dozed off.


	4. Bubbles: Fun with Robyn, part 1

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 4A: Bubbles - Fun with Robyn

* * *

It was some time later that same night when Bubbles was awoken by her alarm clock going off. Rather than one with an alarm - because of her, and her sisters' superhearing - the clock lit up the room with a small strobe light when activated.

Bubbles sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes to clear her vision, and then hit the "off" button on the alarm, plunging the room back into relative darkness. After waiting for a minute for her eyes to adjust to the low intensity light being cast into her room from the full moon outside the window, she glanced at the clock's display.

11:32 AM.

Ugh, I hope no-one's up for a midnight snack, 'specially BC, thought Bubbles. She floated out of bed and over to the door, being careful not to knock into anything, as even the smallest sound might accidentally wake one of her sisters from their own slumbers.

Wearing the day-clothes that she had gone to bed in an hour and a half earlier - a light blue "Angel" t-shirt with a stylised picture of an angel underneath, a sleeveless yellow dress, and a pair of Mary-Jane shoes - she hovered slowly across the landing and down the stairs, not noticing that she had incorrectly buckled her shoes in the dark and that her left shoe was dangerously close to dropping two feet to the ground. As she reached the bottom of the staircase, the item of footwear finally fell free and landed with a loud CLUNK that sounded through the entire house.

Bubbles quickly flew to hide behind the TV, in case either of her sisters or their father should wake up and come down to check on what caused the noise. When it quickly became apparent that nobody had been woken up, she retrieved her shoe, quickly buckled it up tight, zipped across the room to the laboratory entrance, and slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind her and heading down to the Danger Grid.

A few years earlier, the Professor had given all three girls a lesson in how to program simulations into the Danger Grid, so that he need not be present to oversee their training sessions; with all the safety protocols activated, it was impossible for the holographic attacks to cause them any serious, lasting harm anyway. Within the confines of the Danger Grid, anything that could be conceived could also be programmed to occur; either by setting up a situation and behavioural parameters and letting it run it's own course from thereon, or by scripting all the events down to the smallest detail (for training until specific actions became second nature).

Bubbles, strangely enough, had shown amazing skill when it came to programming; she was, after all, very linguistically inclined, and computer programming languages are just like any other kinds; in only a matter of minutes, she had set up a scenario which would allow her to explore the phenomenon of tickling at her own rate, locked the doors and the shutdown codes out on a 90-minute timer, and gone down into the actual simulator, ready to start at her voice command.

"Computer: activate scenario 'Bubbles One'."

* * *

It was another beautiful and sunny day in the Pokey Oaks district of the City of Townsville. Buttercup had flown off to the park early in the morning to meet up with the rest of the girl scout troop to play little-league baseball against another local youth club; Blossom had gone with her to watch the match and cheer her on; the Professor had unfortunately been called into work that Saturday, otherwise he too would've been at the match - instead, he'd asked Blossom to video the entire game for him to watch the moment he got home.

Bubbles, meanwhile, had not gone; at the last match, she'd been bored the entire time - aside from anything else, she didn't know the rules, and kept confusing it with rounders - and also overcompensated by cheering so loudly for Buttercup's team, The Super Girls, that she managed to knock most of the team unconscious and caused Buttercup herself to trip and fall just short of home base, where she was then run out by the 3 girls following in behind her, losing all 4 runs and losing the game by a grand total of 3. Needless to say, Bubbles hadn't been a very popular girl with the team THAT night...

"So, what do you want to do then, Bubbles, as we've missed most of the baseball match?" asked Robyn, one of the Powerpuff Girls very best friends and next-door neighbour practically since the girls' creation. She had also been unable to go as she had just finished her weekly violin lesson; it wasn't her idea, it was her mother's, who felt that young Robyn needed to have a bit of culture instilled into her before she became one of the "unwashed teenaged masses". What she seemed pluralularly unaware of was that her daughter found learning the violin to be a desperately dull exercise in futility, and that she was already also taking guitar lessons from Blossom twice a week after school.

"Well, as it's just the two of us, why not play a game?" asked Bubbles. "But I don't mean chess," she quickly added, anticipating what Robyn was about to suggest, "I'm nowhere near as good as you and Bloss."

"Actually," said Robyn, with a big grin on her face, "I wasn't even gonna bother - I know you don't really like playing it anyway." Bubbles heaved a sigh of relief. "Plus it's such a great day today, it'd be a shame to waste it on board games." Bubbles was a little confused - after all, "What else is there for only two people to play?"

"Well," said Robyn, thinking hard about this question, "how's about a wrestling match?" Bubbles was stunned by that proposal - if the average teen's strength is rated 1 on a scale of 0 to 1infinity, then Bubbles and her sisters would clearly be into the low triple digits, at least. "What! Wrestling? You wouldn't stand a chance! Plus, well, I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting you in hospital."

"Pfft!"

"'Pfft' nothing, Robyn. If we wrestled, you'd be flattened in a matter of seconds. You've seen us fighting monsters and supervillains, and they're way more powerful and stonger than you - no offence."

"None taken, Bubbles. But it's not just about strength - it also majorly about weakness. And I know yours. And that's why it won't be as one sided as you think."

"Well, if you're sure you wanna do this, I'll go easy on you then", said Bubbles, seriously worried about hurting her best friend.

"No, don't; if I wrestle with you, I wanna know you're gonna give it everything. Just one promise though - you use all your strength, but none of your other powers. 'Kay?"

"Okay", said Bubbles, not sure how that would make things even. Even without her ability to fly, her speed, eyebeams, or sonic scream power, a fight between them (even in play) still seemed about as one-sided a straight line. Little did she know that Robyn really DID have a few tricks up her sleeve.

They quickly adjourned to the back garden where, hidden from the neighbours' sight by tall fences, they prepared to wrestle.

Now, clothing can have an impact in this sort of sport, so neither had a clear advantage here based on this fact alone; Bubbles was wearing her t-shirt and summer dress, which may potentially restrict her freedom of movement and as it was a fairly breezy day, could get in the way. On the other hand, she wore buckled Mary-Jane shoes, which meant that she wouldn't be at risk of tripping over her own footwear, as it wouldn't come loose of its' own accord.

Robyn, however, was wearing her usual t-shirt with the picture of a half-eaten apple on it's front, and a pair of denim shorts - more freedom of movement. On the flip-side though, she was also wearing a pair of flip-flop sandals, which might slip off and cause her to lose her balance more easily. So, as previously stated, there was no clear edge here. Bubbles had a clear theoretical lead in strength and agility (even though Robyn was on the school gymnastics team - Bubbles had been banned for improper use of her powers during rehearsals one day), so nobody would say that Robyn could win.

And nobody would be absolutely right.

The girls circled each other, looking for the best opportunity - thereby both losing the element of surprise; then, they both lunged forward at the very same moment, and banged heads. Bubbles was almost completely unfazed by this because of her preternatural strength (even though she wasn't consciously using her strength, she was still naturally super-resistant to injury), but Robyn was momentarily stunned by the impact; Bubbles immediately picked Robyn up by the waist and flipped her over on her back. Robyn recovered to find Bubbles sprawled across her stomach, pinning her to the ground and counting to 10.

"1...2...3..."

Robyn found both her arms were trapped under Bubbles - undeterred, she simply wiggled her fingers into whatever of Bubbles' flesh she was currently in contact with. It turned out to be Bubbles' stomach, causing her to arch her back away from the tickling hands and break into a fit of giggles.

"...4...hahahaha!...5...hahahahAHAHAHAHA!"

At once, Robyn pushed off the ground, knocking Bubbles sideways with the suddenness of the movement, and rolled over to stand up before Bubbles could resume her pin.

Bubbles swung forward at thin air, trying to grab Robyn but instead felt Robyn's smaller hands as they headed straight into Bubbles' underarms and began scrabbling around as fast as they could. Bubbles managed to maintain her composure for all of about 2 seconds under this new unexpected assault from her friend before the laughter that was welling up inside of her burst free.

"What the...? That's not fahahahair, Roby...heheheheheheeheeheehee... hahahahahaha...ohohohoho nooooo, it tickles toohoohoo much...pleasestop!"

As Robyn slid her hands down Bubbles' ribcage, still tickling at the same furious rate, now more just below the waist though, Bubbles was trying so desperately to back away from the tickling that she was unable to properly defend herself against - too weak from heavy laughter to do anything - that she didn't notice until after the event that she had tripped on the uneven ground and had landed flat on her back, with Robyn fallen on top of her and tickling all around her waist to keep her almost begging for mercy.

"Pleheeheeheeheease Robyn, I cahahahahan't, hahahahahaahaa..."

"You can't what, Bubbly?" asked Robyn, using her pet nickname for her friend in a teasing tone of voice, and suppressing a giggle at the helplessness evident in her long-time superpowered buddy.

Bubbles kept squirming uselessly under Robyn's weight, but was unable to move more than a couple of inches in any direction. She tried to throw Robyn off of her by using her super-strength, only to find it wasn't there to be used; it was like all those times when they were younger and some various villain would nullify their powers with a dose of Antidote X; all the same feelings of vulnerability came hurtling back to her across the gulf of time, except this time they were accompanied by fits of irresistible laughter and wriggling, not sadness and despair.

Similarly, all of her other powers seemed to have been temporarily short-circuited by the feelings shooting through her body from her super-ticklish ribcage. For the first time in this wrestling game, Bubbles realised that she was well and truly at Robyn's mercy; that she couldn't simply get out of this all whenever she wanted to. That made her all the more ticklish.

Somewhere along the line, Bubbles noticed that she must have stopped laughing, because Robyn's weight no longer pressed down on her stomach and upper legs, and because she was merely panting hard to catch her breath.

_Wait a minute - if Robyn's not tickling my ribs anymore, then where is she?_

That thought shot through her mind, striking a renewed feeling of apprehension in the puff, as she saw Robyn kneeling a little way off, right by her still-shod feet. And she was playing with the buckles on Bubbles' Mary-Janes.

"You know what Bubbles?" she asked, a look of total innocence on her lightly suntanned face.

"No, what?" asked Bubbles, thinking _Run!_ Regrettably, at that moment, her body felt frozen, tensed as rigid as could be, and yet at the same time she was shivering at the sensation of Robyn caressing the tops of her feet through the shoes' open tops.

"These shoes of yours look so cute. Where d'ya buy 'em from?"

Bubbles visibly relaxed at that comment, although her feet continued to twitch ever so slightly under Robyn's slow, gentle stroking. "Err...Clarks. Why?"

Robyn shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, no reason." An impish grin crossed her face as she continued, "but I bet your feet look even cuter bare."

At this last comment, she quickly and deftly unbuckled both shoes and pulled the straps loose, leaving Bubbles in a now incredibly loose pair of shoes that she could not hope to hold on her feet if Robyn decided to play some more; which she did. Bubbles pressed her feet as hard as she could against the turf in a hopeless attempt to dissuade Robyn from her next action, which was to try to slide the shoes off Bubbles' feet. When Bubbles resisted, though, she didn't appear at all surprised; in fact, she had rather expected that reaction. So, reaching into the shoes, she started to stroke gently all over the tops and sides of Bubbles' feet. Bubbles squeezed her eyes tightly shut and started chanting her 13 times tables out loud to help her ignore the already maddening feelings coursing up her legs.

"One thirteen is thirteen...heh...two thirteens are t-t-twenty-six...hehe...three t-t-t-thirteens ahahare uh...thirty-nine...heh HA!"

Bubbles laughed unrestrained for just a second as Robyn's fingers brushed against both arches simultaneously; the tickling was just too strong for her to ignore. She could already feel her willpower crumbling. Still, something in her told her to fight with every little of her remaining inner strength.

Her feet and legs were shaking almost as though someone had attached electrodes to them, like they had a life of their own, as Robyn continued the slow circular motion over the tops of Bubbles' feet, following her feet as they jumped about on the grass. And with each small jumping movement, the shoes slipped further off her heels. Over the knuckles of the toes, around the outer edge of the foot, running briefly over the ankles before trailing back across the top of the foot itself and then down the arch back to the knuckles of the big toes again. Around and around and around and around...

Bubbles wanted to scream; she wanted to laugh, to cry, to flail around like some madwoman on the ground, but she did none of these; however much the slow tickling was driving her crazy with the need to beg for release, for Robyn to stop and let her go, there was a larger part of her that enjoyed being out of control, that liked the fact that all her nerves were dancing with the electric sensations moving through her which made her finally start to laugh even though she was still holding it back as hard as she could.

"Four thirteens are four hahahaha...are heheheheheeheeheehee...fifty f...hahahahahahahahahaahaa...mmph!...f-f-f-four HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Her legs jerked violently all of a sudden, totally out of Bubbles', and Robyn's, control, and both shoes went flying through the air, sailing clear over the hedge and the fence, and continued on, out into space, where they bounced off a space shuttle and drifted off into deep space. Bubbles eyes went wide in surprise at that - Robyn had been facing Bubbles, so had not seen what happened to the shoes. However, Bubbles eyes seemed to grow even wider at the look on Robyn's face just before she turned around, kneeling astride Bubbles' thighs and putting her back to Bubbles, effectively blocking Bubbles' view of what was happening at her feet. Then, she started the tickling all over again, except now on Bubbles' even more sensitive (if that's possible) soles.

Bubbles had had a brief reprieve, giving her time enough to get her breath back, but not much of anything else. Even as she felt her strength, and other powers, starting to return to her, she also felt Robyn's nimble fingers running all over her soles and under her toes, and her powers rapidly started to ebb again as she futilely bucked once more under Robyn's weight, and quickly bubbled over once more with helpless giggles.

"What's the matter, Bubbly? Can't the super-heroine take an 'ickle tickling?" asked Robyn, reverting to baby talk to humiliate Bubbles into laughing even harder. "I thought you said I wouldn't stand a chance in a wrestling match, so what went wrong? Underestimated your weaknesses, eh?" She grinned manically as she tickled Bubbles' feet still faster, forcing all the air out of the poor girls' lungs.

So, here's the picture at the moment; Bubbles, lying flat on her back, feet bare and laughing like a hyena on happy pills, with Robyn kneeling astride her thighs and tickling her bare soles, so facing away from Bubbles. Bubbles, desperate to stop this any way she could - it was fun, but very tiring, and why shouldn't Robyn share the fun as well- took advantage of the fact that Robyn was facing her feet to pull herself up to a half-sitting position, resting on her elbows, still laughing to much to pull herself up all the way. Timing her movements in between her laughter (as well as she could concentrate, anyway), she lunged forwards and grabbed Robyn around her ribcage, tickling as gently as possible to weaken Robyn in return.

"Yes, widdle Bubbly is just too ticklish, isn't shEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! O GOOOOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOD!" Robyn was caught utterly unawares, and the rapidity with which the tickling sensations exploded through her body caused her to fall forwards onto the ground between Bubbles feet. She didn't stop her own tickling though, and Bubbles' own laughter made her fall back to lying on the ground, as her stomach muscles couldn't hold her up any longer.

Now, both girls had their faces and hands next to the other one's feet. Bubbles feet were bare, while Robyn's still had her flip-flop sandals covering them, and were soles-up at the moment, so they were partially protected from Bubbles' tickling probing fingers. She tried to pull the flip-flops off between peals of laughter, but Robyn curled her toes around the thong straps, making the task of pulling off the flimsy footwear quite difficult for Bubbles in her currently weakened condition. Summoning all of her concentration, Bubbles pulled back the rubber sole of the sandal with one hand and tickled Robyn's sole with the other.

Robyn nearly screeched with laughter as she was startled out of her world that centred around tickling Bubbles' feet by the feeling of something soft scampering over the bared skin of her right sole. Right away, Robyn's toes started to wiggle of their own accord, and Bubbles was able to easily remove the flip-flop and begin tickling between the toes with her one hand while still tickling the sole and arch with the other.

"Hahahahahaha! O god, it tihihihihihihickles sohohohoho...please, ahahahahaha NOT THERE! NO, NOT BETWEEN THE TOES HAHAHAHAHAHA...HAHAHAHAHAHA...TEEHEEHEEHEE...HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE HEE HEE...no, ANYWHERE BUT HAHAHAHA THEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHERE!"

Finally, after several minutes of the two girls fairly simultaneously tickling each other's bared feet - Bubbles repeated her tactic with Robyn's other foot to again remove the sandal - both of them had progressed to silent laughter, then became too tired to even squirm under the others' continued tickling assault, and finally were so completely worn out that they couldn't even summon the energy to tickle each other any more.

Robyn rolled off of Bubbles and, exhausted, stumbled indoor still barefoot, heading straight for the fridge and a refreshing drink, followed closely by Bubbles, also barefoot, after she had wiped off most of the grass stains.

After pouring two glasses of fruit juice out, Robyn and Bubbles sat at the dining table opposite each other, sipping their drinks in partially awkward and partially tired-out silence. Finally, Bubbles felt that she just had to break the almost deafening quietness by saying, "well, that was fun, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was", said Robyn, breaking into a broad grin. "Tiring but fun. And I betcha never thought you'd see the day when I could overpower ya, hey?"

"True. But that doesn't mean that I didn't like it," said Bubbles, swinging her feet under the table. Her right foot bumped against something that felt fleshy, but Robyn didn't show any reaction on her face. Bubbles just shifted position slightly and kept swinging her feet.

"What, you're saying you really liked feeling out of control when I was tickling you?" asked Robyn.

"Of course. I just felt that I...that I could trust you, completely. And you were gentle; well, kinda." Bubbles smiled. Her foot knocked against that fleshy object again, but when she tried to move away from it, it seemed to follow her, and then she felt it rubbing against her calf; it was Robyn's foot! Bubbles tried to remain calm in spite of this revelation, but could hear her heart begin to pound in her ears and feel as Robyn's toes curled and flexed around her calf. Bubbles' own foot started to twitch absent-mindedly, though not as in a ticklish reaction.

"Completely?"

"Of course. Why, shouldn't I?" asked Bubbles, giving a slight nervous giggle. Robyn's foot reached higher now, rubbing back and forth around her knee and flicking her toenails lightly against the back of Bubbles' thigh. Bubbles barely stifled a gasp of surprise by chewing on her lower lip, whereas she was unable to prevent her leg from shaking slightly under Robyn's tender ministrations, and the goose-bumps that rose all over her skin at the titillating touch.

_What the...? I'm flirting with a simulation of Robyn, my bestest friend in the world, and I'm LIKING it! What's wrong with this picture, Bubbles, hey? Well, for one thing, she's a GIRL, and I'm a girl, and this is just...ewww, wrong wrong wrong wrong...but then why does it feel so good? _

Bubbles was startled out of her reverie by the feel of Robyn's other foot resting on top of her own foot, curling and stretching her toes against the top and arch of the foot. Bubbles again tried to withdraw, but Robyn was gently pressing her weight down onto Bubbles foot. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem; Bubbles would still simply be able to move away, but she couldn't for some reason. Not because of her conflicted emotions shorting out her motor functions, but she just could not stop shivering from Robyn's game of footsie, and all of her strength had given out again.

"Robyn..." Bubbles whispered, "we shouldn't..."

"Why not?"

"It's just too fast, isn't it?" Bubbles asked, thinking _definitely too fast_ but also _FAST? YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME!_ at the same time. At once, she felt Robyn's feet withdraw, and her breathing began to return slowly to normal.

"Oh, sorry" said Robyn, blushing a deep red and looking out over the garden to avoid looking in Bubbles' eyes. "I must've...I mean...y'know, misread..."

"No, no you didn't", said Bubbles, thinking _stupid, now you've made her feel like an idiot. _ "You really didn't - I'd just...like to go slower?"

Robyn sighed with relief. "OK. Slow, I can deal with. It's just, I felt that our friendship was...growing, and I really wanted it to, and I hoped that you did too but I couldn't be sure, so I thought that I'd go with my gut feeling and pray for the best..."

"You don't have to explain Robyn", said Bubbles, wishing not for the first time since stepping in to the Danger Grid that this wasn't only a holographic simulation.

Once more, a silence settled over the pair, although this time it was broken by Robyn, and much sooner too. Also, it didn't lead to anywhere as near an awkward conversation as the previous icebreaker had.

"So I was thinking Bubbles," she said, and Bubbles' focused her attention fully back on her pretty brunette companion, "as you like tickling and being tickled so much, why don't we see just how good you are?" Bubbles expression showed she didn't quite understand. "You tie me down and tickle me properly, all over, and then we switch places; but only until mum and dad get back, mmm'kay?"

Bubbles developed a slightly evil grin at this idea - being able to tickle her girl...best friend all over without fear of the tables being unexpectedly turned on her. "Okay; but tie you down with what; and where?"

"Well," said Robyn, thinking about this briefly, "the best place would be my bed, and I've got some old jump-ropes that we could use."

"Jump-ropes? That wouldn't hold me", said Bubbles, puffing up her chest to look tougher. Robyn giggled at that remark.

"Really?" she said. "Remember outside just now?" and quickly ducked under the table, grabbed Bubbles' left foot firmly by the ankle, and gave her a quick tickle under the toes.

"AhhhhhhHHHHHHAHAHAHAHA! OK, OK, enouhahahahahahahough!" Bubbles shouted with undisguised laughter. She tried to pull away, but Robyn tugged hard on her ankle and Bubbles landed with a bump on her bottom on the floor next to Robyn, with Robyn still holding her ankle loosely.

"See? I think those jump-ropes will be enough to hold you if they can hold me down. Let's get going - we've only got about an hour and a half before mum and dad get back." Robyn stood up, pulled Bubbles off the floor, and led Bubbles quickly up to her bedroom.


	5. Bubbles: Fun with Robyn, part 2

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 4B: Bubbles - Fun with Robyn

* * *

Bubbles had been inside Robyn's room on many occasions over the years, or various reasons, with and without other people present apart from the two of them. This was, however, the very first time that Bubbles ever ventured into her best friend's bedroom expecting to be tickled - and yet Bubbles was thinking _none of this is real - Robyn will never know. What a shame_.

"Take a seat; I've just gotta find some stuff and then we can get started", said Robyn, gesturing to her clothes-strewn bed. Bubbles began collecting up an assortment of attire and placing it on a nearby chair, and then pulled the duvet off the bed too, before sitting slightly uncomfortably on the bed's edge, waiting for Robyn.

Robyn had unlocked her closet and had removed a small shoebox with a "Warning: Bio-Hazard" label on it's lid. She sat down next to Bubbles and removed the lid, causing Bubbles to gasp when she saw the box's contents.

Inside were a vast assortment of feathers and other tickling-type implements; long, thin feathers; short, fluffy feathers; large, soft ones; small, rigid ones; an electric toothbrush; a small hairbrush; a few combs; a pair of gloves, which Robyn put on, and two large ball-bearings, which Robyn then removed to show to Bubbles.

"What are they?" asked Bubbles, naturally confused.

"I dunno. I found them a couple of years ago, lodged in a tree in Volcano Park. They're made of some strange metal that stays cold no matter what they're in contact with - great for a sudden shock. Here, hold them", said Robyn, handing the two metal balls to Bubbles, who readily took them and then almost jumped at the feeling of immense cold against her palms, quickly passing them back. "Can you imagine feeling that and not being able to escape from the cold, already really sensitive from being tickled crazy?" Bubbles nodded, shivering at the idea. "It'd tickle like mad", said Robyn, putting the balls back into the box and removing the gloves, "but I think that can wait for later. Plus, you need to be tickled somewhat before that anyway, for it to work really well."

"So you've been tied down and tickled before?" asked Bubbles, curious.

"No", said Robyn, with disappointment evident in her voice. "I didn't know anyone else liked to tickle and be tickled like me until you tried to fight back out there", she said, referring to what had just taken place outside. Bubbles grinned.

"Well, you know you're not alone anymore, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Robyn smiled, taking Bubbles' hand in both of her own. They just sat there for a few moments, contemplating the twists and turns in that day's events so far. Just as the moment was beginning to become vaguely awkward, Bubbles took the initiative and tickled one of Robyn's feet with her toes, wiggling against the sole to catch Robyn unawares.

Robyn, caught off-guard by the unprovoked tickling, fell back onto the bed laughing, kicking her legs up in the air and pulling Bubbles down onto the bed next to her. Bubbles pulled free of Robyn's tightened grip and quickly swept her skilful fingers up and down her friend's ribs, eliciting great gales of laughter from the girl. This, in turn, caused her t-shirt to ride up as her stomach heaved with exertion, and Bubbles then moved to gently poke and squeeze her stomach, around the waistline and in particular centring on the navel, and Robyn began to convulse in silent laughter. Finally, Bubbles relented and they both sat up once more, Robyn gasping for breath by this time.

"Well," said Bubbles, "we know we're both ticklish, and we know we're both really good ticklers," which earnt her an adorable pout and a quick prod in the tummy from Robyn, "SO let's get on and see just how good we are!" She looked around the room briefly and then asked, "Now where are these jump ropes?"

"I don't have any" said Robyn, and then went on to explain, "you're right, they wouldn't be very good for tying up. But," she said, diving under her bed for a few moments, and returning brandishing some ropes, "I have these. They're thin, but really strong, and they don't chafe either." "How d'ya know?"

"I've tried tying myself up before, but it's almost impossible to do a good job."

Bubbles just sat there thinking _the girl keeps ropes under her bed, just in case. Should I be scared, or excited?_.

"Come on, then!"

* * *

"That's not too tight, is it?" asked Bubbles, tying Robyn's ankles to the bedposts at the foot of the bed. This bed was very useful for such bondage, as at each corner of the bed's solid wooden frame was a post with a carved knob on top, which made it easy for Bubbles to tie Robyn down and impossible to slip the ropes loose from the bed once they were in position. Bubbles had already tied a rope to each ankle and to each wrist, and had then pulled on the ropes, stretching Robyn's form taut before tying off the rope on each wrist. Similarly, she didn't want to hurt her friend by pulling too hard on her legs either.

"No, that's fine" said Robyn, knowing that once her other ankle was properly secured, she'd be unable to move at all and would then be completely at the super-heroine's mercy; this made her nervous not at all, however - she knew she could never hope to be in safer hands then she was at the moment. Hands that were, right then, tying the ropes and sneaking in the occasional tickle to her bare foot as well, causing Robyn to squirm slightly and muffle a small giggle. "Mmm...mmmph...mmmhehheh...stop it Bubbles, not yet! Heh..."

"Sorry, couldn't resist." Bubbles grinned openly. "Captive audience and all." She quickly finished tying off Robyn's other leg, and then asked her if she could move and was comfortable.

"Yeah, that's comfortable. And no, I can't move at all; everything's at full extension."

And she wasn't misleading Bubbles either; she really couldn't move so much as a millimetre, Bubbles had tied her so tightly that she was effectively completely immobilised.

"Right," said Bubbles, scratching the back of her neck while deep in thought, "where should I start?"

"Well..."

"I know!" said Bubbles, cutting Robyn off, as she was about to suggest one of her less ticklish spots to start with. Bubbles went over to the shoebox sitting on Robyn's desk, and removed from it two small, fluffy, yellow canary feathers. Then she climbed onto the bed and knelt astride her friend's flat chest - marvelling from the feel at the fact that Robyn had not yet really hit puberty - holding a feather, poised to tickle, in each hand.

Robyn, meanwhile, did the only thing she could do in the circumstances - she chewed on her lip in nervous anticipation of how Bubbles would begin, and wiggled her toes energetically. She suppressed an uneasy giggle.

Bubbles brought both feathers down slowly, so that Robyn could see where she was headed before the feathers vanished out of her line of sight. Robyn was totally tensed up, expecting a strong tickle right from the start and trying to build her resistance against the sensation she knew to be coming. Any moment now...

It never came.

After a few moments, Robyn opened her eyes to see Bubbles waving her hands about just below the bound girl's chin. Then, concentrating hard, she realised that Bubbles was indeed tickling her, but very gently - so gently she hadn't felt it before, having been too tense to feel anything so soft.

Now that Robyn COULD feel the downy feathers against her neck though, she couldn't ignore the slight, slowly growing tickly feeling around her neck and below her ears. Although Bubbles kept moving the feathers round in small circles centred on two certain points on her neck - the main nerve points - the sensations began to spread out, across her shoulders, down over the upper part of her chest, up around and in her ears and over the lower part of her face. Even the slightest facial expression, such as scrunching her eyes shut in an attempt to block the tickling mentally, sent tingles spreading across her entire body, and made it even harder to hold back the giggles in her belly. She tried to steady her breathing, but the tickling made all her muscles shudder and shake, so that her breaths came in short, sharp gasps and her skin almost rippled as all her muscles reacted to the titillating touch.

"Heh...haha...that tickles teeheehee...teehee...heheheheheheehee...more than ahahahahaha...more thehehehehehehen anything teeheeheeheehee..."

Robyn tried pressing her lips tightly together to stop the light giggles slipping out, but they kept coming regardless. The tickly feeling from her neck had by now reached a maddening pitch, so that Bubbles could actually see her neck muscles visibly shaking through her skin. Her toes curled tight as she fought to regain control over her body, if only for a second longer. However, her willpower quickly gave out and she was reducing to a sweetly giggling, ticklish little schoolgirl, which was just what she was, and her toes began to wriggle again, even faster than before.

At this point, Bubbles decided to stop tickling briefly and give Robyn a short break in which to catch her breath. She didn't, however, leave her position astride Robyn's stomach.

"So, how did that feel for starters?" asked Bubbles.

"Well," said Robyn, still panting slightly, "it was great! It felt kinda odd though."

"How d'ya mean?" asked Bubbles, already thinking ahead to where she was going to tickle next.

"Umm...not being able to fight back or protect myself - I was completely at your mercy, but I still knew I was, like, totally safe. By the way, could you loosen these ropes a little bit? I'm starting to feel like I'm being pulled apart." Bubbles made an apologetic expression and proceeded to loosen the bindings slightly so that Robyn was no longer completely immobile; however, she was still incapable of escaping from any tickling that Bubbles might, and would, inflict on her tired form.

"That's better", Robyn said, rolling her shoulders as much as she could, enjoying having some freedom of motion back. Bubbles, meanwhile, repositioned herself to be sitting on Robyn's thighs, after having ditched the two small feathers in favour of using her fingers on Robyn's sensitive ribcage.

It was quite obvious to Robyn what was about to happen, but the inevitability of the fact didn't help any; in fact, it made her more desperate to somehow pull her arms down to her sides, which she could of course not do at the time.

"Please be gentle, okay Bubbles? Pleeeeeeeeeeeheeheeheehee..."

Her sentence was cut short as Bubbles' hands darted quickly to her upper ribs and began prodding and poking quickly between them on one side, whilst on Robyn's other side Bubbles swept her fingers slowly and smoothly over the soft skin underneath her t-shirt which had by now ridden halfway up her chest.

"Heeheeheeheehahahahahaaha, ogodthat tihihihihihihickles toohoohoohoohooo hahahahahaha...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAA HAAAAAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAAAA HEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHAHAHAHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!"

The tickling almost instantly overcame Robyn's ability to withstand, and within a matter of no more than a couple of seconds, she had been reduced to so much humanoid-looking jelly and beyond any ability to even put together a single coherent word, let alone an entire sentence.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...S-S-S-S-S-S STOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHHAHAHAHA ...HAAHAAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...EEEEEEHEEHEEEHEEHEEHEE HEEHEE...GGGLLLLLLGGGGGLLLLLLGGGGGGLLLLLL...L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L...HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Bubbles just watched as all the laughter was forced out of Robyn's mouth, faster in fact than she could physically take a new breath; slowly, her face started to turn a noticeable shade of red, and her constant laughter degraded into occasional spastic sobs before finally becoming entirely silent.

Robyn had never felt anything like this before in her life. Occasionally, one or the other of her parents would tickle her for a few moments, but she would always try, and usually succeed, in squirming away and distracting their attention with other matters; it had never, ever, felt like this when they tickled her. This tickling she didn't want to fight - she was content to just lie here and be tickled as far as her body could handle. Why was that? Maybe it was because she knew Bubbles enjoyed it just as much in the same way, or maybe she simply trusted the superhero more than her own parents (face it - who wouldn't trust a superhero?).

Bubbles meanwhile, had had many experiences with being tickled and a few which involved tickling others, too. But few of them had been as fun as this experience was, save one.

Once, she had experienced a similar reaction to a ticklish situation - she'd had a dream one night that some mystery person had kidnapped her and tied her to a chair in some abandoned building before tickling her all over her body. Shortly thereafter, Bubbles had awoken to find her sisters by her bedside; they said that she had been first talking agitatedly and then laughing in her sleep. She was covered in a cold sweat from the experience and, for just a moment as she was in that half-awake, still half-asleep state Bubbles had actually felt herself being tickled and had felt her reaction to it - she had LIKED it. She had kept this information to herself though, for fear that her sisters would simply devote even more time and energy to tickling her, and that wouldn't satisfy this enjoyment; they were always too rough in their tickling. These thoughts rushed again through her mind as she continued to tickle up and down the ribs of this likeness of Robyn.

Robyn by now looked to be almost on the verge of passing out from laughing so hard, so Bubbles stopped again to give her some time to recover, while she again moved, this time so that she was positioned to tickle Robyn's stomach and behind her knees as well.

Robyn felt the movement further down the bed, out of her line of sight, and realised Bubbles was shifting focus towards her legs, and inexorably towards her most ticklish of all spots - her feet. Robyn was worried; should she say something and risk Bubbles moving straight down to her feet now, or stay quiet and be tickled there later, when she would have even less energy still?

Robyn decided the second course of action was preferable - maybe Bubbles wouldn't go for her feet after all. Not that it really mattered where the blonde puff tickled her; everywhere was ticklish to some degree, especially once Robyn was "softened up", so to speak, by hitting a weak spot early on.

"Ready to give up yet, Bobbi?" asked Bubbles, grinning down at Robyn from where she was now sitting near the "foot" of the bed (pun intended). Robyn just gulped air for a few more seconds before answering, hoping to stall as long as possible at this point.

"Not really", she croaked in reply, her throat parched from the seemingly unending forced laughter she had endured. Bubbles zipped down to the kitchen and returned momentarily with a large glass of water, which she proceeded to help Robyn drink. Once Robyn had downed half the glass, Bubbles placed it on her bedside cabinet before taking up her previous position on the bed once more. Then, she danced her fingers as fast as lightning over the back of the bound girl's left knee, causing a slight jerking of the leg in response, as well as eliciting a small snort from Robyn, and some of the recently drunk water to come spurting out of her nose, which Bubbles barely managed to dodge in time.

"Heh...FFFFGGGNNNNNNAHAHAHA! Hey, that wasn't fair - I hadn't swallowed yet!"

"Yeah, but it looked funny from where I was sitting" said Bubbles, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Robyn simply resorted to sticking her tongue out, which prompted Bubbles to burst into an enchanting flood of giggles.

"Just you wait Bubbles - I'll get you back yet. Remember, I agreed to be tied and tickled by you if you did the same afterwards. And I'm gonna repay you for EVERYTHING."

"Is that a threat, or a promise?" asked Bubbles, with a vaguely coy smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she softly stroked Robyn's bare midriff, producing only a few twitches and a couple of sighs from her friend. Before Robyn had time to answer, however, Bubbles touch became slightly firmer, just enough to actually tickle, and whatever Robyn might have been about to say was lost in the laughter which bubbled up in her chest and spilled out in short bursts. She swayed from side to side, trying to escape Bubbles' tickling touches, but naturally couldn't move far enough as her bonds were too strong and inelastic.

For the next few minutes, Bubbles proceeded to scamper her fingers all over Robyn's heaving stomach, at times prodding and poking around her waist to produce loud guffaws, at other times stroking softly around her belly button to bring forth a constant sprinkling of light giggles, and still other times kneading the flesh around her hips to force out loud shrieking laughs; each method of tickling, and each small ticklish area, produced a different sound, and Bubbles soon learned to play them more or less as a musical instrument, causing Robyn's laughter to travel right through the range of notes, almost as if she were conducting an orchestral symphony.

Robyn, too, was enjoying this immensely, completely losing herself in the sensations that coursed through her lightly wriggling frame, and the laughter they produced.

"HAAHAAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHEHHEHEEHEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHOHOHOHOHOHOOHOHO HOHOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHIHIHIHIHIHIHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHEEHEEHEEHEEEHEEEHEEEHEEE HEEEHEEEHEEEHEEE..." Her laughter remained unbroken the whole time, as not once did Bubbles let up for a moment. Finally though, when Robyn began to cry uncontrollably - having exhausted her ability to laugh - Bubbles called another halt to the proceedings.

"Was that too much? I thought you were enjoying yourself", said Bubbles, grabbing a hankie and wiping Robyn's eyes gently with it.

"I was", Robyn replied after several minutes, once her breathing had settled back down. "It felt wonderful; but could you lay off the stomach for a while? It's a little sore now", said Robyn, smiling feebly to show she was only joking.

Bubbles took her statement at face value though, and turned to face Robyn's feet now. At once, Robyn regained all the energy that had seemed previously to have been sapped from her by the tickling Bubbles had carried out, and she began pleading as fast as she could.

"No please Bubbles, not the feet please? Anywhere but the feet, they're too sensitive, I'll laugh myself to death if you tickle me there, anywhere else please? What about under my arms?"

_Hmm_ thought Bubbles. _If she's this worried about me tickling her feet, I'd be I'll get a real good reaction when I DO tickle her there. But she has a point - I've neglected her underarms as well...aha!" _

So Bubbles had a great idea; she lay down on top of Robyn, facing Robyn's feet and with her legs stretched out on either side of her best friend's bound form, feet lying right next to Robyn's underarms. Then she took hold of Robyn's feet and gently massaged them for a moment, as a short warm-up exercise.

"Bubbles, what are you doing? Bubbles?"

"Relax Bobbi - you DID suggest that I tickle your underarms, didn't you?" asked Bubbles slyly.

"Yeah, but instead of my feet, not as well as! You knew what I meant."

"You're right - but this is more fun." Bubbles grinned evilly.

"Ooooh, I am sooooo gonna gehehhehhehhehhehhehhehhehet you for this hahahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAHAAHAAAHAAAHAAA..."

Once again, her words were lost in her laughter, now more than ever, as the tickling stole control of her body from her on two fronts; on the first front, Bubbles was wiggling all ten fingers over both of Robyn's bare soles at the same time, in differing patterns to distract Robyn from ignoring the sensations. On the left foot Bubbles drew figure eights on the sole, whilst on the right foot she lightly scratched around the arches and toes, and whenever Robyn tried to scrunch her toes up to keep Bubbles' fingers from getting between them, Bubbles simply tickled the heel instead, causing the foot to jerk hard and the toes to once again splay wide open, seemingly inviting Bubbles to resume tickling them. After a while, Bubbles switched her tickling tactics on Robyn's feet, just to throw her even further off-balance mentally.

Meanwhile, Robyn was also experiencing the height of indescribable tickling pleasure and torture simultaneously from her underarms as well; for Bubbles' own bare feet, resting by her underarms, had begun squirming around, and she was alternately prodding and stroking Robyn under her arms with her toes, which Robyn couldn't even slightly defend herself against. Instead, all that Robyn could do was lie there, laughing her head off as Bubbles began doodling pictures on both her wriggling, fidgeting soles.

As Bubbles lost herself in her little tickling coup de grace, she wasn't paying attention to where her feet were and as a result her left leg, and foot, shifted from Robyn's unprotected left side and landed across her chest, the toes and indeed most of her bare foot ending up crammed into Robyn's mouth, which had been forced open by her unceasing mirth.

Robyn suddenly felt something big and heavy fall in her mouth, and tried to spit it out - it wouldn't move. She could see quite clearly that it was Bubbles' foot, but couldn't do anything to tell her about this unexpected development. She tried to move her head out of the way, but was too securely tied down. There was nothing she could do about this bizarre occurrence, and as she was still being tickled, she didn't stop laughing the entire time.

Bubbles noticed something strange as well; she had been tickling Robyn's underarms with her toes, but now her left foot felt strangely very warm and moist, and seemed to be clamped in position. She glanced around and saw it wedged in Robyn's mouth, and thought _Uh. Well, I hope she doesn't mind too much. _Bubbles then attempted to remove her foot from her friends mouth, to find that Robyn, due to her incessant laughter, had clamped down on the gag quite tightly. Bubbles decided that the easiest solution to this problem was to stop tickling Robyn and then they could easily extricate themselves from this predicament.

At that exact moment, Robyn's chuckling caused her warm, wet tongue to slither over Bubbles' sole and toes.

Bubbles tried to ignore this and stop her own tickling of Robyn, but she couldn't. She seemed to have lost control just from that one simple lick, and whilst she was no longer tickling Robyn's feet - her arms having fallen uselessly to the mattress in front of her at the first tickling touch - her other, free foot began wriggling even harder in Robyn's right underarm, causing return tickling feelings to shoot through Robyn. At the same time, both girls attempted to restrain giggles that threatened to burst out at any second. Bubbles succeeded in this task.

Robyn - already weakened by her previous tickling - didn't, and hence she accidentally nibbled on Bubbles' toes this time.

Bubbles, in sudden ticklish shock, froze at this sensation, before pulling her legs sharply away - leaving Robyn stunned by the speed of this motion, and with a devilish idea for her revenge tickling - and rolling off the bed to a standing position.

"That was, uh, interesting", Bubbles said, not sure what else to say without the situation becoming even more strange than it was already.

Robyn agreed. "Quite enlightening too, I felt", she added, with a secretive grin that made Bubbles shudder with both excitement and no small amount of fear. "So, are you gonna untie me yet? I think it's my turn to do the tickling now!"


	6. Bubbles: Fun with Robyn, part 3

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 4C: Bubbles - Fun with Robyn

* * *

Bubbles was thinking this was maybe not such as good an idea as it had seemed originally. _At least when we were wrestling before, I had the chance to fight back_, she thought. Then again, did she really need to defend herself - surely she could trust her friend...her girlfriend?...to be gentle and not go too far?

Some apprehension was clearly showing on her face as she chewed a strand of stray blond hair. Robyn looked up from where she was tying Bubbles' feet to the bedposts and smiled reassuringly at the powerpuff.

"Don't worry Bubbly," she said, using her pet name for Bubbles, "I won't hurt you."

"O...I know that Robyn," said Bubbles, relaxing slightly where she lay, "but this is kinda different to the wrestling match, isn't it?"

"Yeah but, it'll feel the same", said Robyn, finishing off the knot and standing up to examine her handiwork. All the knots were secure - she didn't ask Bubbles to test them, because at full strength the girl would simply tear the ropes from where they were tied. Instead, she tested them by pulling on them herself.

Just as Robyn was selecting her tickling instrument of choice with which to start the session, both girls heard a voice from downstairs.

"Bubbles? Robyn? You two here?" it asked.

Bubbles winked at Robyn knowingly, and Robyn quickly untied Bubbles from the bed and they hid the equipment underneath the bed as Robyn shouted back, "yeah, we're up here Blossom", for that is who it was.

A few seconds later, Blossom's head appeared around the door (To clarify, this is a holo-Blossom).

"Whatcha doing?" she asked. Bubbles and Robyn shared a sideways glance before answering the question.

"Oh, nothing much", said Robyn.

"Yeah, just hanging out," added Bubbles, with a grin, "having a laugh".

"Okay", said Blossom, entering the room, "mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," said Robyn, patting the bed, "come on in."

Blossom moved over to the bed and sat down in the space that Bubbles and Robyn had made for her, between them.

"So," said Robyn, turning to face Blossom fully, "how'd the baseball match go?"

"Well, we got off to a good start, but Buttercup showed off and knocked the ball all the way to the moon, so the umpire gave our team a 3-run penalty, and we lost by 2 in the end."

"Oh, that's too bad", said Bubbles, reaching under the bed and taking a long thin feather out of Robyn's special box, "did she get the ball back?"

"Yeah, but they couldn't use it; it was so cold, it shattered on the next pitch."

At that moment, Blossom noticed that both Bubbles and Robyn were now holding feathers; Bubbles had the one mentioned, while Robyn's was shorter and fluffier. "Umm, guys, what's the feathers for?" asked Blossom, vaguely nervous.

"We're gonna cheer you up!" chirped Robyn, with a mischievous smile.

"You mean you're gonna tickle me?" asked Blossom, incredulously. The girls either side of her merely nodded enthusiastically. Blossom's expression changed to one of condescension. "How childish."

"Oh reeeeeeeeeally?" asked Bubbles and Robyn at the same time, in a sing-song type voice that told Blossom all she needed to know. "So how come you look like you're about to fly out the window?" asked Bubbles, noticing her redheaded sister had begun to scoot across the bed towards the window on the other side of it.

At this question, Blossom realised there was no point trying to sidle out of the room and literally flew for the open window, only to be brought down before she could move more than 2 feet in its' general direction. The reason for this abrupt halt to her motion was that her friends had both managed to grab hold of her ankles as she flashed past, and were pulling against her with all their combined might. Whilst Blossom wouldn't have worried about zipping off with Bubbles holding her leg, she was more wary of hurting or scaring Robyn and so didn't pull hard enough. This was what sealed her immediate fate.

At this point, it may help to describe Blossom's apparel. Being a hot and fairly humid summer's day, Blossom was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt with a picture of a rainbow and the words "Don't worry" across the front and "Be happy" written on the back. Along with this, she also wore a light pink checked skirt that came down to just above her knees, and a pair of well worn buckled leather sandals.

This greatly facilitated Robyn and Bubbles' in bringing Blossom down from her escape attempt, as both girls merely stroked the feathers, which they each still held in their free hand, up and down the arches of Blossom's feet in the space between the straps; at once, Blossom uttered a single "eek!" and fell to the bed, where she attempted to curl into a foetal position, so as to protect her otherwise vulnerable feet.

Bubbles leapt nimbly over the bed to stand on Blossom's left side, whilst Robyn climbed off the bed and walked quickly around it to flank the red-haired puff's other side. Blossom stood too, hoping for a chance at escape to present itself to her somehow.

"What, you wouldn't tickle me, would you?" asked Blossom, some apprehension creeping into her voice at the thought. Then, trying to sound far braver than she actually was, she added, "I'm your sister, Bubbles, AND I'm your leader."

"This isn't an emergency, Blossom", Bubbles calmly pointed out to her, "and aren't sisters meant to tease each other?"

As Bubbles had her sister's undivided attention, Robyn moved in even closer behind her and quickly goosed her sides, causing Blossom to almost bend double with forced laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No...teeheeheehee...quitit!"

She tried to bat Robyn's arms away, but the smaller brunette held on tightly to Blossom's waist and continued to massage the flesh just above her hips on both sides. Blossom's knees soon gave out and her weight collapsed back against Robyn as the laughter continued to be driven from her relentlessly.

"Hahahahahaha...o god, pleeeheeheeeheeeeeheeeeeaaaaaase...aaaah! Tihihihihihihickles...eeeeeeeeee...heeheehee tee hee hee hee hee..."

With Bubbles' help, the two of them managed to heave Blossom back onto the bed, where she squirmed helplessly as Bubbles' fingers skittered all over her bared stomach. Robyn went for the ropes beneath the bed, but when Blossom saw what she held when she reappeared, she immediately screeched, "Oh no! You don't...heh...get me THAT easily!"

With a grace that was unexpected given her current position sprawled across the middle of the bed, legs overhanging the edge, she prodded Bubbles in the back of her knees with her sandaled feet, which caused Bubbles to drop to the ground. As Bubbles was no longer tickling her, and with Robyn still trying to get a hold of one Blossom's wrists, Blossom did a quick backward roll over the bed away from both girls, and skipped rapidly out of the room shouting behind her "Nyah! I'm too clever for you!" and blowing raspberries at them childishly.

"So that's the way she wants it, eh?" Bubbles asked Robyn, as she grabbed the gloves, a couple of feathers, and the pair of icy metal balls.

"Well in that case, that's the way she'll get it", said Robyn, and they grinned at each other again, a new playfulness added to the proceedings by Blossom's attempted escape and unusually juvenile attitude. They both ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs, where they stopped to decide which way Blossom may have gone.

Most of the houses in the street were identical in their floor plan, so the stairs came down next into the lounge, with kitchen/dining area behind it, looking out into the back garden. Blossom had easily had enough time already to flee the house and retreat into the safety of her own room, but something told the girls that this was not the case. Blossom seemed, at this point, more in the mood for playing a game than for simply running away.

Then they noticed a sandaled foot peeking out from behind the sofa. Blossom was lying, face down, in front of it, trying to remain unseen from the staircase. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't unseen, and moreover couldn't see that Bubbles and Robyn were sneaking up around the back of the sofa. The first she knew of this was when she felt Bubbles' hand close around her lower left leg and a feather being inserted between her foot and the sole of the sandal, and then it being swiftly swept up and down the gap that resulted from Blossom tightly, and subconsciously, clenching her toes in an effort to fight off the tickly sensations.

"Heh...hahaha...heheheheheheh...hahahahahahahahahaha...hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Blossom squealed, and pulled with all her might to try and dislodge Bubbles' grip. It didn't work, as the act of being tickled cancelled out all of her superpowers almost instantaneously.

As Robyn made her way around the other side of the sofa, Blossom's wildly flailing arms knocked her legs out from beneath her, causing Robyn to fall on top of Bubbles and for the two of them to become momentarily entangled in the ropes that Robyn still held in her hands. This gave Blossom enough time to once again pull her leg free of Bubbles grip and attempt to make a dash for freedom.

Blossom sprinted away from the sofa and into the kitchen, where she tried to find something else to use with which she could hide from her tickle-obsessed sister and best friend. The first thing that came to mind was a tea tray.

_Nah, not nearly big enough to hide behind_, she thought, and then her gaze fell upon the dining table. She whipped it up and held it so that the tables' legs were on either side of her, and so that she appeared to Bubbles and Robyn to have become a large, broad slab of wood with two feet peeking out from beneath.

Bubbles and Robyn both tried to dive around the table, but Blossom simply turned to face them each time that they did, so that the table remained in the way. When both girls tried moving around opposite sides of the table, Blossom backed up slightly towards the outer door leading into the garden. It seemed that a stalemate had been reached.

"There's nothing we can do", said Robyn, pouting. "You're such a meanie, Bloss."

"Well," Bubbles whispered to Robyn, "I know one thing that could work..." and she finished by nodding down at the ground, drawing Robyn's attention to Blossom's still shod feet that were squirming nervously as Blossom herself tried to anticipate what the two girls would do now that she seemed to have stopped them dead in their tracks. Bubbles held Robyn's hand to help them both steady themselves, and then they each lifted up one bare foot and placed it on top of the nearer of Blossom's fidgeting feet. Then, once they were sure they were perfectly balanced, they started to stroke the tops of Blossom's feet with their toes, which caused Blossom to once again in explode into sweet giggles.

"Hee hee hee hee hee...no fair...hee hee hee hee hee...that's toohoohoohoo much...heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee..."

The table, and Blossom behind it, started to sway from side to side as the tickling and the laughter once again took control of her, and finally Blossom's strength gave out and the table fell to the side, and ended up leaning against the oven. Blossom just stood there, seemingly mesmerised by this ingenious method of being tickled, and continued to laugh like never before.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...hahahahahahaha...tee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...tihihihihihickles more than... hee hee hee hee hee...anythihihihihihing..."

Adding to her laughter, both girls began to softly run their fingertips up and down Blossom's ribcage, and whenever they approached her underarms too closely, she would bite her lower lip and stifle a small squeal.

"Hahahahahammmmmmmmpppppppphhhh...hehhehhehhehhehhehheh...eeek!...mmmmmmmmmmmpppppppppph...hehehehehehehehehehhehehehe..."

As both Bubbles and Robyn continued to tickle Blossom all over - varying the actions of their hands to also include stroking her stomach and the more sensitive skin on the inside of the arms - Blossom's laughter faded away gradually until all that could be heard in the house was fast, shallow breathing emanating from her mouth.

The girls, noticing this, stopped tickling her. Bubbles closely examined her sister's face for signs that Blossom may only be pretending so as to launch a surprise revenge attack.

"Is she asleep?" asked Robyn, curious and confused.

"Well," said Bubbles, peering at Blossom's eyes, which were dilated and unfocused, "she seems to be. But her eyes are still open. I think she may be in some sort of trance."

"Blossom" Bubbles continued, "are you awake?"

"No..." muttered Blossom in a voice slurred with sleep.

"What is your full name?" asked Bubbles.

Blossom's slurred answer of "Blosssssom Amelia Utonium" came as a mild surprise to Robyn.

"I didn't know Blossom has a middle name", she commented.

"Oh yes, we all do. Buttercup's is Anne, and mine is Abigail", replied Bubbles, casually.

A thought came to her friend. "Ooh, I've got a question!" squealed Robyn. "Blossom, where are you most ticklish?"

(Please note; this isn't the real Blossom, only a copy that Bubbles made using Blossom's psychological profile. That information doesn't include ticklishness, etc; which Bubbles made up for the purposes of this simulation).

The answer came almost immediately, though there was a slight tone of reluctance when saying "My most ticklish area is on my ribcage." Then, after a short pause, she added, "Buttercup's most ticklish area is on her stomach, and Bubbles' is all over both feet." Bubbles just wriggled nervously on the spot and gave a shy giggle, before turning the questioning back on the mesmerised Blossom again.

"What sort of tickling has the greatest effect on you?" she asked, and again there was an almost unnoticeable, but obvious, reluctant pause before the reply came, except this reply was far more cryptic.

"Extremes. Asymmetry."

"What does that mean?" asked Robyn of an equally baffled Bubbles.

As Blossom would not elucidate further on this point, they decided that it was time that she was awoken from her hypnotic state, so that the fun could continue. Bubbles simply shouted "Awake!" and Blossom did so.

Sadly for Bubbles, and for Robyn too, neither was prepared for Blossom's next move, which was to leap forward between them, arms wide, and knock both the girls to land sprawled across the lounge floor. Blossom herself landed no more gracefully, and a rapid melee of whirling arms and legs ensued as each tried to right themself before the other two girls could do so.

Blossom and Bubbles both tried to climb to their feet, thwarted as they were by the entanglement of their limbs. Robyn came up with the more ingenious solution of reaching out, grabbing the two nearest feet, and tickling for all she was worth, determined not to be subjected to any more tickling that day, having already had her fill in the bedroom. These feet belonged, one to Blossom and the other to Bubbles.

With her right hand, Robyn swept her fingers quickly over the bared sole of Bubbles' left foot in a fashion akin to a spider wearing roller-skates. Bubbles' leg at once started to shake violently in her grasp, and her foot squirmed and wriggled like a fish out of water, toes scrunching tight and spreading wide alternately as though she had no control over them whatsoever, which was true.

With her left arm, Robyn managed to trap Blossom's sandaled right foot in the crook of her elbow and stroked her fingers up and down her exposed arch, which elicited much the same response as Bubbles was exhibiting.

Both girls half-sat and half-lay there, writhing in the grip of the ticklish torment being exacted upon their helpless feet by their supposedly best friend, currently teasing them almost out of their minds. Bubbles bounced around on the carpet, unable - and, at least in part, unwilling - to escape, laughing in her usual high-pitched, melodic voice. Blossom, meanwhile, fell forward as the sensations ran through her, unable to support herself properly, and kept pleading with Robyn to stop and let her go.

_Well,_ thought Robyn, _I can't tickle just Blossom and leave Bubbles alone - she might try and sneak in a few tickles against me if I'm completely focused on Blossom. And well, they're both such easy targets, it's just too much fun to resist. _

_I don't believe it!_ thought Bubbles. _I thought we were gonna gang up on Blossom - and now she does this to me. Well, two can play at that game!_. With a mischievous twinkle back in her eye, Bubbles reached out to both her sister and girlfriend and planted her hands firmly against their underarms. Then, as both of the other girls dutifully squirmed against her fingers invading their senses - and as Robyn stared at Bubbles with a mild look of shock on her face, which faded moments later into an ear-to-ear grin when the tickling broke through her mental defences - she pushed harder and felt their arms come down, squeezing her hands still harder into their ribs in an effort to put a stop to this new tickle; in fact, it merely heightened the sense of helplessness as they couldn't rid themselves of her tickly digits whilst they were pressed so tightly against the girls' sides.

Blossom, not to be outdone, and with an ever decreasing portion of her conscious mind devoted to finding a way out of this situation - the rest being too busy with dealing with it and making her laugh her head off like some kind of crazy person - almost fell between her blonde pigtailed sister and her friend, and began to scrabble her fingers hard against their stomachs, feeling both tummies pushing back against her hands as their owners were laughing so uncontrollably by this time.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - pleeeeeeeeeeease, anything but the heeheeheeheeheehee feet, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho hehehehehehehehehehe... I can't tahahahahahahahahahahake it!"

All three girls were now yelling incoherently, in between long, loud, forceful peals of laughter, for the others to stop their own tickling. The three of them were caught in a catch-22 position; if they stopped tickling, it might leave them defenceless against the others' tickling. None of them wanted to be the first one to cease, but this impasse clearly couldn't last indefinitely. Someone would falter, someone had to.

There was a knock at the front door, which no one answered as they were all far too busy trapped in this circle of tickling. Moments later, Buttercup appeared at the back door, wandering where all the sounds of laughter were coming from. She had first gone home - next door - to shower change out of her little league outfit - before heading back out to find her sisters and their next-door neighbour friend. The sight that greeted her in the lounge was one of the last things she would've ever expected to see.

Bubbles, Blossom and Robyn were all sitting on the lounge carpet, all laughing their heads off as they tickled, and were tickled by, each other. Bubbles had her hands buried in her companions' underarms, and trapped there by their arms clamped to their sides. Blossom was sort of sitting to her right, leaning so far forward that her nose was nearly touching the ground, chest heaving mightily with deep-chested laughter, and her hands pressed against Bubbles and Robyn's stomachs, scrabbling around for all they were worth. Finally, Robyn was sitting at the third point of this triangle of titillation, one each of the puffs' feet held in her lap, stroking and prodding and teasing and scribbling all over Bubbles' sole and in between the straps of Blossom's surprisingly still fastened sandal.

This was the scene that Buttercup took in upon her arrival in their house, and her reaction to it was fairly straightforward. What would anyone else do in a similar state of affairs?

"Cool!" she yelled, "Tickle-fight!" and dove straight into the middle of the triangle.

In seconds, all three girls recognised that Buttercup had joined the ménage a trios and all, as one, redirected their stroking, prodding, squeezing, scratchy, tickly fingers towards the fresh meat lying prone in front of them.

Buttercup hadn't been expecting such a sudden diversion of attention towards herself, and was unable to effectively counter three separate pairs of hands working over her flesh from three different directions.

"Heh...hey, quit it! No fair - that TICKLES!"

Bubbles went straight for Buttercup's stomach, particularly her tummy button, remembering what the hypnotised Blossom had said about her raven-haired sisters' weakest spot. Buttercup retaliated by trying to grab Bubbles' hands, and even succeeded in doing so for a few seconds.

"Nyyyyeh, can't gehehehehet meeeeee...hahahaha oi! Hahahahaha-OH!"

Bubbles tried to pull her hands free of Buttercup's grip, and was helped when a few moments later Robyn's hands went to work in Buttercup's underarms. As Buttercup reflexively released Bubbles' hands and tried to bat Robyn's away, Bubbles immediately resumed her own attack on Buttercup's once-more unprotected tummy.

Buttercup knew that she was fighting a losing battle here - Bubbles on one side, going for her stomach, and Robyn on the other side, working with Bubbles by keeping her occupied with quick, darting tickles to both underarms, so that the toughest puff couldn't anticipate her actions even slightly. Bursts of laughter kept slipping out between surprised yelps, barely concealed laughs, and uncontrollably goofy-looking grins that Buttercup couldn't keep off her face for long.

Buttercup tried twisting around to protect her ticklish spots from further molestation, but this just made her underarms an easy target for Blossom instead, and Robyn moved to take Bubbles' place around the girl's waist. Bubbles moved on to target another area of Buttercup's super-ticklish body.

Buttercup was unable to do anything. She couldn't fight back - they outnumbered her 3 to 1, and any defences she could muster were immediately blown away by the incessant tickling of her contorting torso. She couldn't escape - her power of flight had abandoned her to her fate, and she couldn't run - she was sitting with her legs folded beneath her, too weak from laughter already to pull herself up to stand.

Just as she thought that she had reached her body's ability to take this torment, it grew still further, as she felt her Mary-Janes being pulled from her trapped feet, and Bubbles' adept fingers begin rapidly drawing patterns all over the responsive soles of her feet.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD IIIIIIT'SSSSSSSSS TOOOOOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO MUUUUUUUUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."

Buttercup attempted to draw her feet entirely underneath her, out of Bubbles' reach, but couldn't properly change positions in such a cramped space between the three girls all keeping her laughing and squirming and fidgeting and twitching. Whenever she stopped one of them from tickling her at any time, the other two quickly distracted her and all three would once more soon be tickling her. Whenever she successfully covered one ticklish area, another seemed to present itself to be tickled.

Buttercup covered her stomach; Robyn switched to tickling her neck. She blocked Blossom from tickling her underarms; the redhead moved to tickle her stomach. She sat on her feet, stopping Bubbles from teasing them mercilessly; Bubbles, in response, began to tickle instead behind her knees (Buttercup was wearing the traditional Powerpuff "uniform" dress, but a slightly shorted version that came down not quite to her knees, leaving them bare).

When she tried to push one or two of them away from her ticklish form, the other one would zero in on her underarms, forcing the "toughest" puff to withdraw sharply with a loud shriek in the midst of her laughter.

Finally, all three girls ceased tickling at more or less the same time, and just lay back, laughing from the enjoyment. Buttercup sat where she was, panting for breath.

"Computer: end scenario 'Bubbles One'."

The computer emitted a single beep to signify that the command had been carried out. Bubbles hauled herself from her spot on the floor of the Danger Grid and returned to bed, being careful to turn off all lights along the way and not cause any sounds that might wake the others.

As Bubbles got into bed, having changed into her nightdress (she had also retrieved her errant footwear before leaving the simulator), and put her day-clothes away, she glanced briefly at her clock again. It now read 1:06 PM (it's set exactly 12 hours out - anyone notice it said 11:32AM when she woke up?).

Bubbles drifted off to sleep fairly easily, being thoroughly exhausted now from her nighttime excursion, thinking about how she could possibly tell Robyn - the REAL Robyn, that is - how she truly felt about her. She remained no closer to a solution.


	7. Buttercup: Revenge is Sweet, Justice is ...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 5A: Buttercup - Revenge is Sweet, Justice is Sweeter

* * *

As her alarm clock went off with flashing red, yellow, and green disco-style lighting that would put some nightclubs to shame, Buttercup brought her hand down flat on the "off" button. The shell of the clock was made of duranium, and it was this fact alone that prevented it from shattering under the force.

Buttercup lay in bed, thinking that it was far too late and she was far too tired to go down to the training room on her own. Then, images of indulging in some clean tickling fun, using the Danger Grid, and knowing that neither of her sisters would ever find out and humiliate her for it, came unbidden into her mind. She decided she'd do it again after all.

Buttercup had often pretended that she didn't get as much enjoyment out of tickling and tormenting Bubbles as their redhead sister clearly seemed to; in a way, she knew that Blossom's liking of tickling was...nearly obsessive, to say the least, and didn't want to think of herself as a similarly tickle-obsessed freak. However, the very fact that she was now going down to the Danger Grid - again, and at night, no less - to engage in both the act of tickling, and being tickled by, others contested that fact.

Buttercup was far more prepared for this than Bubbles, who had gone down before her, as she had done this many times before, more nights than not since the nights had become a comfortable temperature again.

She slipped quietly out of her bed, taking her time to let her eyes adjust to the very low intensity light around her, and careful not to make any noise or knock anything - the very last thing she wanted was to wake anyone.

Dressed in jeans, a plain forest green T-shirt and an old pair of Mary-Jane shoes that were two sizes too small, Buttercup floated silently over to the door and pulled it open. Earlier that evening she had taken the liberty of borrowing the Professor's lubricant, to make sure that all the door hinges were properly oiled and wouldn't squeak when moved - no point in doing something sloppily, after all.

Just as she was about to head across the landing and down the stairs, she saw Bubbles, still dressed but barefoot, holding a pair of shoes in one hand and looking exhausted yet content. Buttercup dove back behind her bedroom door and pushed it to, then waited until she heard Bubbles close her own bedroom door behind her. Once she was fairly sure that Bubbles wasn't coming back out again, Buttercup moved across to the stairs and floated down into the lounge.

Unlike Bubbles before her that night, Buttercup floated near the ceiling as she crossed the lounge, to avoid accidentally bumping into anything and subsequently creating noise. Unlike when Bubbles had gone to the Danger Grid, someone else woke up.

Buttercup heard the Professor coming down the staircase before she could actually make out his form in the darkness. The light came on moments later, and Buttercup pressed herself against the nearest wall, right above an ornamental stuffed peacock, trying to look invisible.

She watched as the Professor walked 7 times clockwise around the couch, followed by 7 times anti-clockwise, and then another 7 times clockwise again. Then he went back up the stairs and into his bedroom, turning off the lounge light along the way. To Buttercup's knowledge, this had never happened before - in fact, it was a nightly occurrence, she just usually wasn't in the lounge when he came down (at the same time every night - she came down at a slightly different time each time).

Now that the immediate risk of exposure had been lifted, Buttercup had time and solitude to notice that some of the upright feathers on the peacock were wafting against the backs of her knees in a slight breeze. The sensations that it produced felt really nice, but Buttercup knew that if she stayed there much longer, she would soon start to laugh and might be found by the Professor - or worse, one of her sisters (especially if it was Blossom).

Quickly, she moved down into the Professor's lab and went straight into the Danger Grid, locking the door behind her and putting a time lock of 2 hours on it. Buttercup didn't feel like programming a new scenario tonight (it would take too long; she was never too great at programming - Blossom had the computer knowledge and Bubbles was as good with computer languages as she was with spoken ones), so she thought briefly about which of her already games she most felt like playing tonight, and quickly came to a choice.

"Computer," she called, receiving a beep from the minicomputer to show it was ready for her command, "activate scenario Buttercup private double-oh six and a half."

* * *

It was a lovely hot, sunny day, as it had been all week long; even longer, in fact. Which was what made it all the more dull for Buttercup, being stuck in her least favourite of all lessons for the last period of the day - Maths.

"Now class," said the teacher, striking the blackboard with her pointer - _Her voice is so annoying; all high-pitched and scratchy. And she's really horrible too; it's not my fault I don't understand averages. Why ARE there three different types of average, anyway? But Blossom always sucks up to her 'cos she lurrrrrrrrrves math - urgh_ thought Buttercup, staring briefly out through the window. She watched as the kids in the year below them played basketball on the playground, and...

"Buttercup, young lady. What is the answer to this next question?" asked the teacher, pointing to the appropriate question on the board.

**What is the mean of: 5, 6, 1, 8, 10, 98, 10, 5, 10, 11, 1? **

"Ummm..._Which one is the mean? O crap, just pick one...my feet are **killing** me..._8?"

Blossom shook her head in disdain, and on her other side, Bubbles chewed the end of her pencil in deep concentration. The teacher tutted loudly in disapproval. "Wrong, Miss Utonium, that's the median. Here you have to take the sum and divide by the number of numbers, so that makes the **correct** answer..." she pointed to Blossom, who had her had so high in the air that she was floating just above her seat.

"15, Miss." The teacher simply beamed with pride at Blossom.

"For the rest of the class, I want you to turn to the chapter on averages in your textbooks and answer questions number 51 through 8. Don't worry Blossom, I'll bring you some work in just a moment, I think I have something here on Poisson distributions for you to do." Blossom almost lit up at that statement.

As the class settled down to their work, Buttercup let herself drift away from averages and just stared at the clock, willing the 45 minutes of maths to pass more quickly. Then her attention moved to the pain in her feet.

_Blast these shoes_ she thought, and bent down to unbuckle her right Mary Jane, careful not to disturb the boy sitting at the desk to her right. At once, she felt a loosening of pressure around the foot, and sat back up as the tension began to ease. _Ooooooooh, that feels sooooo much better. _She wriggled her toes in contentment and then flexed and curled them until the shoe dropped lightly to the floor. _Ohhhhhhh yeah. _Then, rather than risk being noticed again, she undid the buckle of her other shoe using her toes - really, very dextrous - and jiggled the foot until that shoe fell off as well. Crossing her legs at the ankles under her seat and letting her tired feet relax, she rested her head on her desk and started to doze off in the hot and drowsy summer weather, now that the noise had died down and her feet weren't hurting her so much.

_What was that? _

Her eyes snapped open at the first faint touch against her toes, and she slowly sat up again, remembering that the teacher might look in her direction. Buttercup had just decided she might as well start the class work, and had begun on the first problem, when she felt another slight touch against her foot. Her leg involuntarily tensed up for just a moment.

Buttercup glanced quickly behind her, but neither the boy in the seat immediately behind her, nor the girls to either side of that boy, was anywhere near her feet - indeed, all three of them were working away feverishly on the set problems. Buttercup passed it off as hallucinations, or an itch caused by the heat, and got back to work.

The itch came back, stronger and now on Buttercup's left sole, causing her to scrunch her toes and try to ignore it.

**The mean of 8 unknown numbers is 72. If you include the number 169 in the set, what is the new mean? **

_How on earth can I do that! _thought Buttercup. Then she saw that she had read question 151 instead of 51, and flipped back 6 pages to the correct work.

As she started reading again, the itch grew in intensity on the sole of her foot, and her whole foot started to twitch from side to side as she continued to pay the feeling no heed. It soon grew and spread across the sole of her left foot and between her toes, and Buttercup couldn't disregard it any longer - she scratched all over her other sole using her sharp toenails.

She almost gasped at the relieving contact of one cool foot pressed against the other, and then almost immediately had to fight back the urge to giggle - the sensation built up much more rapidly now, and spread to the toes she was scratching with, as though something was spreading across her feet. She could not, however, force the smile off her face that had suddenly appeared there.

"Are you alright?" asked Blossom, and Buttercup just grinned back at her.

"Sure, no probs sis", she said, and began rubbing both feet hard against the linoleum floor.

Buttercup no idea what was going on, except that the tickling now covered all of both her feet, and finally seemed to have stopped spreading, although it did not recede. She looked around again, but everyone else was still immersed in their work. What she failed to notice was the small, empty packet of itching powder on the desk of Mitch Mitchellson, the boy directly behind her. He watched as she fought to remain in control, and seemed to be slowly winning.

Undeterred, he reached out to the desk on his right, and snatched up one of the girls' spare pens with some pink fluff sticking out of its' end, and, leaning forward in his seat, began to waft it over Buttercup's bare feet, which were facing him soles-up at the moment.

Buttercup had finally completed the first 2 questions and was celebrating in her mind when the tickling, which had almost faded into background noise, became more noticeable and erratic again. She scratched each foot with the other and tried to pretend it wasn't happening, but couldn't. Finally, Mitch managed to get the pink fluff between her big and second toe - her second most ticklish area, after her stomach - and her entire body convulsed, throwing her sideways off her chair and knocking her desk against the one in front. In a flash, she was on the floor, seemingly writing in massive pain but laughing manically at the same time, thereby utterly destroying her image as toughness incarnate.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! I CAN'T TAKE ANYMOHOHOHOHOHOHORE!"

The teachers' head instantly jerked away from her paperwork toward this chaotic scene, Mitch having already pulled himself upright, and given the girl her pen back. Buttercup hauled herself off the floor, straightened her jeans and righted her seat before taking it again, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

"BUTTERCUP UTONIUM! GET UP HERE NOOOOOOOOOW!" yelled the teacher, furious at the disruption to her class, and by a Powerpuff Girl no less.

Buttercup, downcast, got up from her seat and walked to the front of the class. She, and her sisters, respected authority, and behaved as any other students at school would, especially when in trouble.

"Buttercup, what on earth did you think you were...where are your shoes, young lady?" the teacher asked, amazement evident in her voice.

"I took them off, Miss", Buttercup stated simply, not wanting to get in further trouble.

"And why did you do that, Buttercup?"

Buttercup, acutely aware that the whole class was watching this exchange, answered truthfully, "they felt uncomfortable, Miss."

"Well tough. Put them back on, now." As Buttercup returned to her seat and put her shoes back on, the teacher added, "and you're in detention this evening too, for causing all that ruckus." Buttercup felt like saying something, but realised that it would only make matters worse in the long run. She slipped her shoes back on but didn't buckle them up, figuring they were tight enough to stay on regardless. As she did this, the hotline phone, on the teachers' desk, rang. Blossom ran from her seat to the front of the class - the Powerpuffs having been told that flying was allowed in the school in NO circumstances whatsoever.

"Hello Mayor, what's the problem?" asked Blossom, getting straight to the point as usual. Then, with a stunned looked on her face at what was said to her, turned to Buttercup and said "it's for you, BC".

"Huh?" Buttercup just gave her a blank look. "Why would the Mayor want to talk to me?"

"It isn't the Mayor. Some villain wants to challenge you to a fight, one-on-one."

"Tell them we're in school."

"They'll smash all the schools in Townsville if you don't turn up" replied Blossom.

Buttercup made up her mind. "Just tell me when and where then, and I'll go sort 'em out." She was already halfway to the door when Blossom responded, "Now, and right above city hall."

The teacher just stared through all of this, gob-smacked, and then waved Buttercup off, reluctant to get in the way of crime fighting. Buttercup ran from the school building and pushed off the asphalt, soaring high into the air and heading straight for the city centre.

* * *

Buttercup arrived at Townsville's City Hall a couple of minutes later, and just floated above the domed roof for a moment, looking around for the one who dared challenge her. When nobody materialized, she yelled out to catch their attention.

"Yo, you there? You challenge me to a fight, and then don't bother to show up - man, this is lame!"

At this point, a figure emerged from the cover of the clouds above. The figure was human; a couple of inches shorter, and thinner, than Buttercup; sported long, thick, wavy red hair; had a light sprinkling of speckles on her face; and a beautiful, melodic voice. In all fairness, she had blossomed into a teen-aged vision of beauty and grace.

"Patience is a virtue, Buttercup. But I wouldn't expect YOU to know that."

"So Princess, this is what you've been planning for ages. Call me out on my own and then overpower me, eh? It's been done."

"No it hasn't," replied Princess Morebucks, "because you and your annoying sisters are still here. But that will soon change, as I will torture you until I find a weakness that I can exploit against you and your sisters."

"Yeah? You and whose army?" "No army necessary." Princess smiled, smugly, before gesturing to her new and highly improved super suit. "This suit is more than powerful enough to take on a Powerpuff in one-on-one combat. Duranium plated, treated with Antidote X and sporting enough physical strength enhancements and weaponry to take down the entire US military."

Buttercup considered her options; flight- but she didn't know how fast Princess could fly; fistfight - the suit was duranium, impervious to Powerpuff super-strength; ranged fight - it was also impervious to their other powers. What did that leave her?

Then Buttercup noticed an important fact - the suit, due to its weight and the amount of armour plating on it, was jointed, and it had obviously been done in a hurry, for the joints left great gaping gaps when Princess flexed her arms and legs. Buttercup figured that there was just enough space for her to get her fingers between those cracks, but it should be enough...

Whilst Buttercup planned her first move - something she was not, by all accounts, accustomed to doing - Princess just launched herself straight at the larger girl and began pounding her viciously in the side of the head.

Buttercup quickly became lost in the pain, and the anger, and the hatred she felt towards Princess - _Who actually calls they're daughter "Princess" anyway?"_ - and threw her off in a fit of blind rage. She shook her head to clear the pain slightly - her head was throbbing from the blows, and she appeared to be bleeding slightly from her left ear - and charged after Princess across the sky.

As Buttercup neared Princess, the redhead swung her whole body to the side a mere nanosecond before impact, so quickly that not even Buttercup could actually see her move. As Buttercup stared behind her in awe of Princess' physical feat, she didn't notice the clock tower looming up ahead until she smacked into it headfirst.

DONG!

When Buttercup came around just moments later, Princess was holding her at arms length around her chest, thereby rendering her unable to use her arms, and began to squeeze her painfully hard. Buttercup could hear her ribs beginning to give under the pressure. She attempted to wriggle out of Princess' grasp, but only managed to shift position a little. As she did so, however, Princess' duranium-coated gloves - flexible, unlike the rest of the suit, which included the helmet she had donned earlier on in the fight, and also very smoothly honed - brushed against her ribcage, causing Buttercup to bite her lip and kick her legs uselessly.

"MMMmmppppph!...Heh...aaaaaah!"

Buttercup tried to kick Princess away from her, but only managed to kick her shoes off, which she still hadn't buckled back up, leaving her feet now bare and a look of realisation dawning on Princess Morebuck's face. She may have been beautiful, but even SHE didn't look beautiful when she grinned evilly.

"So the little puff is ticklish, is she?" she asked Buttercup, who couldn't answer as Princess was still holding her; no longer squeezing, just holding. Unfortunately, the grip tickled ever so slightly and so Buttercup dared not answer in case more giggles slipped out. Princess glanced down and chanced to find that Buttercup's feet were bare - her shoes having dropped to the pavement some two hundred feet below them. Buttercup took the opportunity that this action afforded her and swung her entire body in Princess' grip, bringing her legs up between them and fairly cracking Princess in the jaw with her bare foot. It hurt her foot like hell, but also dazed Princess temporarily and knocked her back several yards.

Buttercup shot forward first, easily closing the distance between them and started tickling Princess under the arms. At first, there was simply no response, and Princess said, in a bored sounding voice, "Please - trying to tickle me through my state of the art super-suit? Were you born dumb, or do you have to practice on a daily basis?"

Buttercup ignored the jibe and continued with what she was doing, which was to seek out the join between the upper arm and the torso of the suit. Finally, her fingers found the vital crack and she wormed them through it.

"That'll clearly...heh...never work...hahaha..." Princess said, trying to retain control and her dignity. Then, with her other fist, she simply smashed Buttercup on the head, knocking her downwards.

Buttercup didn't fall very far, mostly because she grabbed hold of the shoe part of Princess' suit as she fell, and managed to stop her descent while at the same time pulling both shoe-like armour sections loose. Throwing them to the ground, she discovered something useful; under the suit, Princess wasn't wearing clothing.

Well, obviously she was wearing underwear, but the suit was too tight and hot for clothing to be comfortably worn - the user would quickly faint from heatstroke. The important fact remained, nevertheless, that Princess' feet were now bare and right in front of her.

Alas, Buttercup reacted too slowly, and Princess kicked her in the face with a fluid motion, knocking her through a nearby office block and out of the other side. She quickly flew after the receding Buttercup, brought her to a stop, still dazed, and started kneading the flesh of Buttercup's stomach as though it was dough.

Buttercup tried to fight through the tickling sensations and strike back at her nemesis, but found she had spontaneously lost control of her arms and legs, and now felt much heavier than normal - Princess appeared to be holding her up; she couldn't fly!

Princess was amazed by how easily tickling Buttercup seemed to disable her, when she gave a sudden lurch and had to correct for Buttercup becoming noticeably more dense in her hands. Why had the girl stopped flying...Unless she couldn't? That would make sense - she had lost control of her body, including her powers - of course.

Princess kept up on the offensive, prodding and squeezing Buttercup's stomach, forcing her to laugh even though she had little air to laugh with. Just when she thought she had subdued the Powerpuff and was finally victorious, she felt something at her own waist, and it too was prodding and stroking her own stomach.

Buttercup had, somehow, managed to twist herself in Princess' grasp while Princess was gloating over her triumph, and had been able to slip her big toe in the crack between the legs and torso of the armour at the waist, and had begun tickling Princess there with her foot. Princess twitched at the touch, and tried sucking her stomach in to move out of Buttercup's reach. But the toe kept coming, and Buttercup even managed to fit all five toes in the gap and force it apart. Even while Buttercup was laughing her head off at Princess tickling her most sensitive ticklish spot of all, and writhing and squirming in the redhead's clutches, she in turn tickled Princess' stomach and was able to entirely dislodge the front half of the chest plating, resulting in more ticklish skin for her to explore and overpower Princess with.

Princess couldn't stop twitching - _How did she manage it? I've got to get out of here_ - and was becoming much weaker with laughter than Buttercup, but enough presence of mind remained within her to grab Buttercup's foot from where it was tickling her stomach and begin to draw patterns across the wrinkled sole.

Buttercup's stomach may normally have been more ticklish than her feet but, just freed from an afternoon cramped in too-small shoes in the hottest weather of the year had made Buttercup's feet soft and smooth with sweat, and therefore much more sensitive to being tickled than usual, even more so than her stomach. The restrictiveness of the shoes had made her feet tense, and tension also results in more ticklishness. Finally, there was the Antidote X on the gloves, which helped to soften up any physical defences she could muster.

The reaction was instantaneous and immense - the tickly feeling seemed to travel up - or rather down, as she was being held upside down by her feet - Buttercup's body to her brain in slow motion, where they burst and released a far greater ticklish reaction than Buttercup had ever imagined was possible. Her foot, and the rest of her body, didn't even move a millimetre; she simply collapsed in Princess' arms, incapable of any motion at all except the heaving of her chest as she laughed, continuously, uproariously, and seemingly without taking a single breath.

Her arms hung limp beneath her, all locomotive power gone from her body as Princess drove her mad with laughter by tickling her sore and tired feet. Those feet were the only part of Buttercup that was moving at all - the toes were wriggling, scrunching tight and then spreading wide invitingly, as Princess danced her gloved fingers smoothly all over, tickling Buttercup's arches, her heels, her soles, her toes, between her toes...

As Princess' fingers moved between Buttercup's toes, all sensations seemed to double and the tickling sensation in her mind seemed to grow and encompass her feet in their entirety. Buttercup tried to fight back, but her arms and her legs wouldn't do anything she told them to. All she could do was laugh, and she didn't have any choice about that at all - she just laughed and laughed and laughed.

The intensity of the sensations was such that her vision was blurring with tears and her laughter was becoming raspy from lack of oxygen. Her toes finally seemed completely immobilised, clenched tight with Princess' fingers clasped between them, but soon all remaining strength in them too gave out as Buttercup lost consciousness and the spaces between her toes became an open target.

Princess, realising she had successfully tickled her enemy into unconsciousness, scooped Buttercup up in her arms and carried her back to her mansion, tickling Buttercup's ribs all the way through the journey.

Buttercup may now have been nearly comatose, but could still feel the tickling, even in her sleep. She squirmed lightly in the cradle of Princess' arms, and giggled in her sleep, obviously dreaming that someone she liked - probably a friend - was playfully tickling her, and murmured in a sleepy voice "Stop that - it tee hee hee heehee-hickles...hehehehehehehehehehe..."

Princess grinned evilly to herself once more, and headed for the torture chamber she had had custom built for her in her wing of the Morebucks' mansion. She also radioed ahead to her little sister to prepare a few things for their imminent arrival.

* * *

To be continued... 


	8. Buttercup: Revenge is Sweet, Justice is ...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios 

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 5B: Revenge is Sweet, Justice is Sweeter

* * *

"Unh...where am I?" Buttercup said as the very first thing when she woke up. Her vision was still distorted and blurred, but she could make out a semi-recognisable white blob standing several metres away.

"Sooo, the prisoner's awake, then", it said, in a high-pitched yet melodic voice. There was the clacking sound of high-heeled footsteps as the white shape moved across the stone floor, and then Buttercup heard a telephone conversation. "Sister - yes, she's just woken up, and is ready for torture now..."

"Torture? Oh please, you two couldn't torture a suicidal man into killing himself!" Buttercup said, mockingly.

"Very good Buttercup; keep it up, it'll make it all the more fun when we break you", said the girl, walking towards Buttercup. As the emerald puff's vision cleared, she stood face to face with a younger version of Princess - every bit as pretty, every bit as spoilt, every bit as...evil.

"Give it up, Duchess, you can't touch me. And my sisters will come looking for me when I don't return." Buttercup smirked triumphantly, a facial expression that felt more familiar to her than most others.

"Well let me just wipe that smirk right off you face then," said Duchess Morebucks, moving until their noses almost touched, and continued in a whisper, "this room is in a bunker that's shielded against your supervision, your physical strength, and all of your energy attacks. They won't be able to find you, let alone get you out. And while you were asleep, we chained you up with duranium, so don't expect that you'll be able to break free either."

"What?" Buttercup said, starting to get a little frightened. Until now, she hadn't even thought about why she had woken in a standing position; she soon found that she was chained to an upright X-frame - well, a pentagram-frame really. She was still clothed, to an extent; Princess had stripped her down to her underwear. For what purpose, she had yet to discover.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Aw, starting to get a little worried are we?" Princess said in a babyish as she entered the room. "Don't worry, we'll give you plenty to be laughing about in due course." She strode over to her captive and examined her at close quarters, while Duchess gave Princess a hug from behind and began feeling her up. The scene made Buttercup want to throw up.

"Eww! You two are...an item?"

"Yes, but we're only stepsisters, so it's alright. Now shut up, Butterball", said Princess, and slapped Buttercup across the face. Then she turned around and gave her younger stepsister a passionate kiss that caused Duchess' toes to curl in her golden-coloured sandals and one of them to moan in pleasure. There was a small clattering sound as one of Duchess' sandals fell to the floor. As the two girls made out in front of Buttercup, she tried to ignore the scene and search for something - anything - she could use to escape. There was nothing that she could see.

The room was quite small, and on the far side of it there was a large locked wall cabinet. The walls appeared to be made of stone, but Buttercup could tell that from what Princess had said, the walls were probably lined with lead and duranium. Buttercup assumed - incidentally, correctly - that this building was not a part of the Morebucks' mansion.

She was sharply snapped out of her reverie by Duchess speaking up again - apparently, the fun was about to begin.

"So, what sort'a torture we talking about?" asked Buttercup, trying to appear nonchalant. "Hot coals? Boiling oil? Pokers? The rack? What, huh?"

"Oh, believe me, we thought of all those and far, far more," said Princess, now smirking, "but as we don't have any Antidote X at the moment, they would be wholly ineffective. And all the duranium went into making this bunker and your chains, so that ruined that idea too. In the end, you were the one who gave us a brilliant idea."

"Me? How?"

While Princess had been busy monologuing and drawing Buttercup's attention, Duchess had retrieved something from the cabinet and moved to Buttercup's side - the frame standing freely in the middle of the room, not against the wall.

"AAAAAAAA! HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Duchess started by simply dragging the tip of the feather back and forth across the back of Buttercup's left knee; Buttercup, unaware, had no way to fight off the tickling sensations and immediately surrendered to them.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahaa haa haa haa haa haaaaaa...oh god, that tihihihihihihihihihihihickles sohohohohohohohohohoho much...hahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahahaha"

"Yes, I had a feeling it would," said Princess, observing the proceedings with no small amount of glee.

"Hahahahahahahahahaha...whyhihihihihihihihiihihihihi...why are hahahahahahaha...you dohohoohoohohohohing this to meeheeheeheeheeheeheeeheeheeheehee?"

"Well," said Princess, reaching up to tickle Buttercup under her arms, "mostly because I can. Also, I've been looking for a suitable weakness - a chink in your armour, so to speak - that would allow me to break one of you. You see, if I can beat you, I can take your place in the Powerpuff Girls' trio when your sisters ask me to cover for you."

"Ohohohohoohohoohohohohoh plehehehehehehehease, that'll nehehehehehehehehehehever work", Buttercup stuttered out through her continuous giggling fit, "they'd ne...hehehehehehehehe...neeeeeeeeeever ask hahahahahahaha to take my plahahahahahahahace."

"They will if we torture them into agreeing", said Duchess, from where she was sitting behind Buttercup, "and then you'll be out of the picture and we'll be in prime position to take over the Powerpuff Girls!"

"NeheheheheheheHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEVEEEEEEEEEEER!" Buttercup just about screamed, as Princess swirled one long, manicured fingernail into Buttercup's belly button as her vest rode up with each deep-throated laugh.

"Oh, don't worry Buttercup, you'll crack eventually. We're prepared to wait," said Princess, "and we can keep this up much longer than you can stand it, I think."

"Nohohohohohohohoohohot on your...hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...l-l-l-l-l-life!" Buttercup screeched. Duchess stroked the backs of Buttercup's knees continuously, swiping the very tip of the feather back and forth along the same line, causing it to turn a slightly darker shade of pink. Buttercup's legs jerked and spasmed helplessly as she tried to protect herself from the tormenting titillation, but her bonds held fast around her ankles and knees. Her chest heaved with laughter as every breath that was sucked in was rapidly forced back out again by their skilful manipulations of her tickle-weakened form.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! O GOD - PLEASE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAVE MERHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHERCY ON MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Shall we, sis?" asked Duchess, still stroking the tips of two feathers over the backs of Buttercup's knees.

"Yeah, why not?" said Princess, giving Duchess a sly wink. The two girls stopped their infernal irritation of Buttercup's twitchy form and waited for several minutes until her giggles had subsided.

"Whats...the - hic- deal now?" Buttercup gasped, hiccupping with all the laughter she had been forced to produce.

"Well, Butterdish", Princess said sarcastically, "how would you like the chance to ease your ordeal?"

_There's a catch - there's gotta be a catch, _Buttercup thought to herself. Out loud, she heard herself say, "Fine. How?"

"Well," said Princess, still smirking, "I'll tickle your feet for two minutes. If you can hold up without laughing for that time, then only one of us will tickle you at a time from then on."

_Yeah, right, _thought Buttercup. _There's no way I could manage that - I'm too tickle-primed by all this tickling so far. And even if I won the wager, they'd just back out on the deal anyway. And if they don't, what's the difference between two people tickling you and just the one? _

"So, what's my motivation to agree?" "Well, it should give you a little breather," said Duchess, and Buttercup snorted derisively.

"Okay, I'll do it. Not like I have a choice." "Good girl!" Duchess squealed, patting Buttercup's head condescendingly. Princess sat down on a stool provided by Duchess and, after a quick kiss from her stepsister, was ready to begin the contest.

"Ready, BC?" asked Princess.

"As I'll ever be. And don't call me BC - only my friends get to call me that."

"But we're friends, aren't we?" asked Princess, mockingly. "After all, we have a laugh together..."

"Not by...choice..." Buttercup grunted, as Princess began waving her manicured fingernails lightly under Buttercup's toes. The feeling was maddening, and not even five seconds had passed yet.

"My my Buttercup, if you're struggling not to giggle after only five seconds of such light tickling," said Duchess, haughtily, "there's no way you'll EVER last the distance."

"Will...too..." Buttercup forced out through pursed lips, feeling powerful vibrations building in her chest, as the suppressed laughter began to force its way out.

_Mustn't talk, _thought Buttercup. _They're trying to distract me - trying to make me laugh. Must concentrate - not give in. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer; take one down and pass it around, ninety-eight bottle of beer on the wall. Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-eight bottles..._

Her toes on both feet kept wiggling wildly under the latest ticklish assault, but Buttercup didn't even crack a smile, let alone let a lone giggle slip out. Princess was becoming just the tiniest bit worried that she may in fact lose the wager as Buttercup held out past the thirty-second mark.

"Coochie coochie coo, little Buttercup", Princes sang, as she tickled the black-haired puff's heels for a little while instead. The girl's feet jerked frantically at the touch, her toes curled down hard to leave less vulnerable skin, and she tried to pull her legs together in a futile attempt to cover one foot with the other. Unfortunately for her, her feet were bound too tightly and too far apart to be able to manage this.

_Ninety-four bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-four bottles of beer; take on down and pass it around..._

Princess realised soon enough that Buttercup was concentrating hard, and that she needed to break that concentration if she was going to get the Powerpuff to submit to her will and her tickling. But how...? She had only twenty-five seconds left.

Suddenly, Princess had a brilliant idea - and unlike most of her previous ones, this might just work.

That day, Princess happened to be wearing a fluffy yellow ribbon in her long red hair and, still tickling Buttercup's feet with her hands, stood up and rubbed the furry ribbon against Buttercup's bared stomach. Buttercup sucked her stomach in to keep away from the fuzziness; rather, she tried to - she couldn't hold still as her body thrashed against the simultaneous teasing of all its' nerve endings.

To add to her predicament, Princess altered her tactics. With her left hand, she kept tickling the sole of the jade puff's right foot, but with her right hand, she reached up and tickled up and down Buttercup's left side, from her hip all the way up the side of her heaving ribcage to under her arm.

Buttercup felt about ready to pass out - she was experiencing occasional hot flashes from trying to drive the tickling out of her conscious mind. She was attempting to let herself give into the tickling; less tiring than trying to fight it, when there was no current hope of escape. Instead, she was happy - well, reluctant - to let her body give in and squirm and wriggle under Princess' tickling touches. She wasn't trying to stop herself twitching at all, but she was determined not to laugh. And perhaps, by partially giving in, she could buy some time and keep the laughter that was still bubbling inside her from erupting for a little while longer...

It was working, to a degree. The urge to laugh was reduced by letting herself be affected, by lowering her resistance to the tickling. But the desire to defy the tickly feelings shooting through her was strong, and it took every ounce of willpower she had to keep herself from tensing up under the vicious tickling assault, for she knew that that was precisely what would be her downfall in this challenge. She just had to stay relaxed, go with the flow, let it all wash right over her, and all that jazz.

The tickling under her arm was merely annoying; although Buttercup was clearly very ticklish everywhere on her body, her underarms were one of her less susceptible points, all things considered. The tickling on her foot was much more intense - Buttercup had always had extremely sensitive feet, and absolutely without question refused to let Bubbles give her pedicures (and not just for the fact that she didn't like to be too "girly"). Whenever possible, Buttercup always wore socks and shoes so as to make her feet less available for tickle torture, although as she was the one usually doing the tickling this didn't really matter so much. Her tummy, on the other hand, was an entirely different proposition - even a slight tickle on her well-toned tummy could have her bent double with a fit of the giggles - in fact, once...

* * *

"Don't make me force you to do the washing up, BC!" Blossom said as she approached her green-clad sister.

"Like, whaddya gonna do to me?"

Blossom got a really evil grin on her face at that question. "How about tickle you?" she said, wiggling her fingers at Buttercup's tummy, causing Buttercup to giggle in almost equal measures of fear and joyful anticipation. Buttercup flew for the open back door, but was tackled to the ground halfway across the room, and in seconds Blossom was busily scrabbling both hands around on Buttercup's belly.

Buttercup squirmed for all she was worth, annoyed that a powerful superheroine like she could be coerced by something so...infantile as tickling, but finally had to admit defeat, and wash all the dishes - without using her superpowers or super speed.

* * *

"So, are you gonna giggle?" asked Duchess, devilishly.

"N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-o-o-o-o-o-o..." Buttercup stuttered out, wriggling like a fish on a hook under Princess' skilful hands.

Princess managed to nuzzle the feathery bow into Buttercup's belly button, causing a violent shiver to take control of Buttercup's body momentarily, and a low groan of "Aaaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a-a-a..." to sound from her throat, as the giggles fought their way out.

"Almost, sis, keep it up - ten...nine...eight..."

Suddenly, Princess had a change of plan; she stroked Buttercup's toes, forcing the girl to curl them tightly so as to provide less ticklish skin. Then, very quickly, she fluttered her long fingernails over the bound girls' high, soft instep as lightly as she could possibly manage, which elicited a small leg jerk and unrestrained wriggling of the toes of that foot - actually, both feet. Then just as quickly, back underneath the toes, then back to the arch, then the toes, in only the few remaining seconds.

Buttercup tried to remain as relaxed as possible, but the rapid-fire alternation between the tickling of her sensitive, plump toes and of her instep was just too much to take. With her mind unable to keep up with the last-moment flood of sensations, she felt her dam of willpower finally crumbling. Her eyes, screwed up tight until now, forcing herself not to react, flew open as if in shock, and her mouth opened wide as she sucked in a massive final breath before the laughter burst forth.

It never came.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as the sensory overload lead to her, for the very first time in her life, fainting.

"Damn...you lost..." she heard Duchess say very faintly, as though from a great distance.

"Meh...who cares?" asked Princess, even more quietly, and incredibly vague sounds of making out were heard as everything went black for Buttercup Anne Utonium...

* * *

"Welcome back...again", said Duchess dryly, as Buttercup regained consciousness about a half-hour later.

"Clearly," said Princess, as she washed her hands in a basin behind Buttercup, "we found all the right buttons to push. Do you feel rested after your recent faint, Buttercup? I hope you do..."

"Because now the real agony begins", Duchess finished, grinning sadistically.

"Whaddya mean, begins?" asked Buttercup, her voice still vaguely slurred from waking up too quickly.

"Don't you know? Oh, this will be fun", Princess said, grinning just as evilly. She walked around to face Buttercup and grazed Buttercup underneath her budding breasts as she did so, prompting squeals of laughter from the bound puff. Then she started speaking again as she kept prodding and poking Buttercup's front at random.

"After everything you've already experienced, your body couldn't take anymore so it just shut down. Now, it's a fact that when you're not quite fully awake, you tend to be far more sensitive - no way to build resistance, I guess. You'll find you're far more ticklish than before, everywhere on your body." Duchess went behind Buttercup again and stuck a finger in the bound girls' tummy button, causing her to shake and let out spurts of chuckling. She slid her bare foot forward between Buttercup's legs and tried to stroke Princess's foot with it, only to find a hand waiting for her as she felt her sister scrabbling those blasted fingernails around the sides of her toes. Duchess quickly withdrew the foot with a loud squeal, and reclaimed the errant sandal, before rejoining Princess.

"Yeah, it'll be much worse than last time; pity we can't stay to watch, but we've got some...fun of our own scheduled."

"Whaddya mean?" Buttercup panted. "How are you gonna keep this up if you're not even IN here? That's not possible."

"That's true. That's why we had our RD construct this lovely machine for you," said Princess, as Duchess pulled a lever in the wall. "Behold...the auto-tickler!"

"Could you come up with a crappier name?" Buttercup asked. Now fully back in control of her body, she also had regained her usual witty repartee.

"Oh, how droll", said Princess. "Let me give you the tour." As the device unfolded from the walls and the floor beneath her, Princess pointed out each part. "Each wheel is covered in feathers. All of them rotate at the same rate, controlled by this remote", and she held up the remote control to show Buttercup, before forcing it into Buttercup's left hand.

"The vertical wheel beneath each foot will tickle your soles. Two more wheels will tickle the backs of the legs, and another two will tickle your sides", she said, ripping Buttercup's vest from her body. "A final horizontal wheel will be responsible for tickling your stomach. There're power backups in case of a blackout, and this room is soundproof, so nobody will hear you. We'll bring you food twice a day - there's no point inviting further trouble by letting you die, is there?"

With that, Princess strolled gracefully from the room, and beckoned Duchess to follow her.

"I'll just switch off the lights," said Duchess smugly. "No sense in wasting electricity, eh sis?"

The room was plunged into darkness, and Princess's voice drifted in as the door swung slowly shut. "It's on a timer - set to start sometime in the next five minutes. Enjoy, Buttercrap. Mwa haa haa haa haa haa haa..."

THUD!

The door swung shut and everything went pitch black. All that Buttercup could hear was the low-level hum from a nearby generator, and felt the remote in her hand. She had seen that it contained two buttons; they were marked "slower" and "faster". Quite simple really - it would only speed up or slow down within certain presets of course, so it was really a matter of how she would prefer her torture...slow, or fast?

* * *

To be continued...

For those wanting to read a 15 to 18-rated - sorry, an R/NC-17 version of this chapter, you can find it at my site. :) I might get kicked off again if I posted it here.


	9. Buttercup: Revenge is Sweet, Justice is ...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 5C: Revenge is sweet, justice is sweeter

* * *

Buttercup stood, chained to the star-shaped frame in the dark, waiting for the machine that was built around her to whir into life and mercilessly tickle her senseless, she heard a door open behind her; no light spilled into the room, not that Buttercup could turn her head to look anyway.

Bare feet padded across the rough concrete floor, and Buttercup could feel light breathing against her back as the person undid the manacles that held her in place; Buttercup fell to the ground and rubbed her sore wrists and ankles as her muscles started to ache from being held in one position for so long.

"Quickly", the voice said, and the person attached to it gave Buttercup a quick prod in the ribs to get her moving, "when they don't head laughter in a few minutes they'll come looking for you."

"Where are my clothes?"

"Here's your dress - I couldn't find your shoes", it said, apologetically. As Buttercup dropped the dress over herself, the other person left the room by the same door, leaving it open behind her for Buttercup to escape via. Buttercup took her chance and slipped out, careful to stay low in case there were security cameras, motion detectors, or something similar wired up in this facility.

* * *

In Princess' nearby accommodations, a passionate embrace was interrupted by a communication from one of Princess' private security force.

"What is it?" Princess asked the guard, clearly pissed off. The young man's voice stammered over the intercom.

"Th-th-th-th-th-the prisoner has escaped, ma'am." Moments later, the guard was nearly deafened by Princess' rather abusive verbal assault. Even Duchess didn't know that many expletives existed. Both girls straightened their clothing and replaced their high-heeled sandals.

"Of course, ma'am. We'll begin a sweep to find her right away."

"Don't forget to use the new artillery, either", said Princess, smirking, as she left the room, followed by Duchess, after grabbing two guns and throwing one of them to her stepsister. They headed off to join the search.

* * *

Buttercup had travelled quite a distance before the alarms went off, at which point she thought _What the hell..._, and began moving much faster. The base was mostly underground it seemed, so flying was out of the question, and she had no idea which way to head to get to the exit. This place was just too damn big.

As she reached an intersection, her hearing picked up the heavy thumping of several sets of boots coming from the corridor to her left, and coming towards her. In all, she counted 6 guards from the sounds alone, and worked out her courses of action; hide, and hope they went straight past her, or fire a pre-emptive attack. After carefully weighing up her options, she shot an optic blast down the corridor before ducking back behind cover.

The guards, not expecting this level of resistance - having never gone against a Powerpuff before - barely ducked in time to avoid the pieces of concrete that were blasted out of the wall by the attack, Buttercup's aim having been off as she was in a hurry.

Both sides prepared for a battle, but Buttercup wasn't prepared for one thing; one of the guards fired a pointless shot past the intersection - Buttercup saw a feather whiz by her field of vision.

"What the...? Tell me that I didn't just see that?" she whispered, incredulous. Leaning carefully around the corner, trying to keep as much of herself behind cover as possible, Buttercup took aim and fired another eyebeam at her would-be gaolers. Sailing down the corridor to where the guards had built a ramshackle entrenchment, the beam pierced their trench's "wall" and struck the team leader right in the chest, knocking him back but not even injuring him. His armour crackled with a greenish energy glow for a moment.

"Great! Now they have eyebeam-proofed armour! What next?" she thought, getting more desperate. A moment later, Buttercup was reminded that she was still partially open to return fire when another shot from one of the guards feather guns sent a single long, thin feather glancing across the side of her neck, and she retreated hastily around the corner as a sharp sensation spread rapidly through her.

Feeling where her neck had been grazed by the feather, she noticed there was a small scratch there where it had the sliced edge-on against the skin, and a fine powder around the edge of the scratch. It didn't smell of anything, and it didn't appear to be doing anything to her, so she just brushed it off and, leaning around the corner, fired another shot.

This time, the guards were expecting Buttercup's return fire, and three several more feathers were launched from guns, grazing her right cheek, her right shoulder and the inside of her upper right arm, leaving further small scratches and more of that useless powder. The guards, meanwhile, had retreated back down the corridor to make Buttercup's aiming harder (they had telescopic sights on their guns), so Buttercup fell back again and considered what to do now.

As she began pondering, she noticed a slight itch on her neck, and scratched it at once, thinking nothing more of it. Then, moments later, similar itches sprang up on her cheek, her shoulder, and the inside of her upper arm. Still not getting the significance of this, she scratched away heartily as she thought about what to do next.

The itches were rapidly becoming more irritating, and were beginning to spread, slowly, from their source points. Buttercup felt an inexplicable urge to giggle, but repressed it as she did not want to give her position away to other troops if possible. Then she realised - itching powder- it was spreading into the scratches...

She scratched harder, trying to get it out, but the powder had already been dug too deep into the scratches, and her shoulder kept jerking as the graduated into a certified tickle. Laughter welled up within her, distracting her momentarily and causing her to stumble out into the intersection by accident.

The guards, having bided their time, took some more pot shots; all but one missed, but that one passed by the side of her knee, and Buttercup gave a small "eep" as she comprehended what had just happened. At once, she took off at a run past the junction, and was out of sight in the distance by the time the guards reached the intersection from their vantage point.

* * *

After that, Buttercup simply kept running just as fast as she could, zipping down the many corridors and through the intersections appearing to all the guards merely as a green streak of light. She still had no idea where she was heading, but at least when she was moving this fast they couldn't hit her with any more of those damn feathers.

That is, until the tickling started to become a major issue; Buttercup was by now experiencing tickling that was akin to small, fluffy feathers being stroked over her cheek and down the right side of her neck, continuing past the shoulder and finally ending at just above the elbow. Her right arm hung uselessly at her side, her hand clenching and unclenching spasmodically as the tickling destroyed her control over her own motor functions.

The tickling at her knee wasn't as serious yet, but it was still growing too, and Buttercup soon found that she couldn't continue running at near-sonic speeds, as her knee was feeling vaguely swollen and much weaker. With every step she took, she had to put more energy into springing off the knee onto her other leg as her knee repeatedly buckled under the light tingly feelings running through it. Her breathing was becoming ragged much faster than usual, and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. As she rounded another corner and kept running, the smile that was fighting to grow on her face finally gained a proper foothold and began to spread, followed shortly after by the first gasps and muffled giggle. Finally, the laughter burst through in its fully glory, robbing her of her super-strength immediately and reducing her to more normal "human" running speeds, as she kept up a continual stream of giggles the entire time, her head lolling back.

She found a door and opened it, discovering a small storage cupboard. Figuring that it couldn't hurt to try looking for an antidote to this itching powder - and not fully conscious of what she was doing through her swelling laughter - she hauled herself in and closed the door behind her, locking it as best she could.

Turning around and still laughing her head off, she stumbled across the room towards the room's sole occupant; a man wearing a white lab coat and a large pair of earphones. Clearly, he couldn't hear her, otherwise he'd be doing something by now. The tickling down the right side of her face, neck and upper arm was intense, but not having too much of an effect on her by this point; it was being mostly sublimated by the severe tickling of her right knee, and she shifted her weight more fully onto her left leg. Grabbing the clunky earphones from the scientist, she whirled him around to face her, and he naturally reacted with shock at seeing a manically laughing Powerpuff staring him in the eyes.

"Whahahahahaahahat is hahaahahahahahaahaahaahahaahahahaaahahaapening t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-to...tee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee mee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...?"

The scientist smirked; Buttercup could see why Princess had employed this guy now.

"That's a special tickling powder you've been affected with," he explained slowly, so she could hear him over her own laughter. "Like itching powder, but many times stronger. It works best when it's in an open wound, quickly and painlessly disabling the subject. And before you ask, we didn't bother finding an antidote."

"Find...hahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ONE NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAOW!" Buttercup said, lifting up both arms and throttling the scientist. His eyes bulged, as he was mildly surprised at how much strength the puff still possessed, even in this weakened state, and he gasped for air. Fumbling around on the workbench behind him, he grabbed up a very pointed feather coated with the powder, and swiped it across her waist. The shock caused by the feeling of the feather slashing across her tummy, leaving another small scratch behind it, made Buttercup inadvertently drop the scientist to the floor, as she herself wobbled and then fell to the ground.

"Wh-hahahahahahahhaahhahahahahahahahaa-why are...why are...hahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE...WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...?"

The scientist, thinking about nothing more at that moment than simply saving his own neck, swept the feather out again as quickly as he could and sliced it across the first piece of skin he came across - the exposed sole of Buttercup's left foot, from arch to outer edge in a straight line. Buttercup shrieked at that scratch being formed, and burst into new, fresh, ferocious bouts of laughter that almost incapacitated her on the spot. With what little muscle strength remained in her, she staggered to a map on the wall, and committed the exit route to memory as best she could in the circumstances. Then she forced her way out through a nearby door and lurched at a run down this new corridor towards freedom.

Now being swiftly overrun by the tickling feelings in her body - most noticeably the maddening teasing behind her right knee, so that she was limping quite slowly, but also the new tickling growing across her belly button area that was soon leaving her doubled up and gasping for breath, and the tickle that was forming on the sole of her left foot, which made even limping ever more difficult - Buttercup dragged herself up a set of steps, around a corner, through a door, and finally, she was out on the surface. She took another step onto the gravel path, and the tickling simultaneously disabled her from three fronts.

The tickling on her tummy grew to the point where she was bent completely over, hugging both arms to her waist and scratching viciously at her belly as it slowly turned bright red. All the breath was at once forced from her lungs.

The teasing on the back of her right knee reached fever pitch, and the knee buckled totally from under her, reducing her to hopping on her left leg - still bent double.

The titillation on the sole of her left foot intensified so much so that he toes curled up in mid-hop, and she landed grinding her toes painfully into the gravel. Right away, she leapt up again, hopping onto her right foot and cradling her stinging left foot in her hands, forgetting about the terrible tickling she was experiencing for just a moment. Then she came down again and the weakened right knee buckled once more, sending her sprawling across the path, some fifty feet (no pun intended) or so from the rear gates of the Morebucks' estate, still giggling like a silly little girl being tickled by her favourite uncle.

As tears blurred her vision beyond her ability to recognise her surroundings, 3 streaks of light appeared close to the horizon, and flew at great speed towards her location, following the sound of her hysterical laughter. The middle streak was pink, to one side of it was a blue streak and on the other side...a green streak? Buttercup didn't even register this as she was lying flat on her stomach, aching all over from continual laughter and over-exertion. The beings picked up Buttercup without even slowing down, and flew her into Townsville Park, which was oddly deserted given the time of day.

One of the beings - Buttercup couldn't tell if they were male, female, or something else entirely, she was so out of it by this point - forced a phial of some white liquid into her mouth and made her swallow it. After a couple of minutes, the liquid began to take effect, and the tickling sensations surrounding the scratches lightened to a gentle stroking and finally ceased outright. Buttercup remained curled tightly in a ball for several minutes more, unable to stop laughing even though she was no longer being tickled, and at last her panting slowed too.

Uncurling herself on the grass, she looked up at her saviours for the first time, wiping her eyes of the tickle-induced tears that were there; the three were girls, the same age as her or only slightly older, wearing uniform-type dresses that she and her own sisters used to wear all the time.

The girl in pink had brown hair in twin ponytails - with ribbons, rather than a massive clip - to about halfway down her back, and appeared to be slightly taller than the other two. The girl in blue had blonde hair flowing loosely and curled under at the chin, dyed electric blue at the ends. Lastly, the girl wearing green had totally almost neon green hair to her shoulders held back by a simple black headband.

"Who...who are you?" Buttercup managed to make out through her sore throat. The girl in blue gave her a bottle of water, and Buttercup tried to sit up to drink. Her tummy muscles, however, had other ideas, as all that laughter had left her too weak and sore to be able to sit up.

"Don't try to move," the girl in green said softly, and dribbled some of the water into Buttercup's mouth. "You'll be pretty weak for a while yet."

"Where...are my...sisters?"

"Who are they?" asked the girl in pink. "We don't even know who you are. By the way, I'm Berry, this is Bounty", she motioned to her blonde sister, "and this is Bonnie."

"I'm Buttercup. Who created you?"

"Princess Morebucks created us", said Bounty. At once, Buttercup's face hardened (despite her sore jaw), and Bounty hurriedly continued, "but we left 'cos she wanted us to torture you - she seemed annoyed that we were good. That's why I helped you escape."

"We're the Tickle-Torture Girls!" exclaimed Bonnie. Buttercup's eyes went wide in her sockets as Berry reached out and playfully grabbed at Bonnie's waist, but was even more surprised at the lack of reaction from Bonnie, other than snuggling her in a sisterly hug. At this point, Buttercup noticed that the girls clothing, although familiar, was specially adapted; the neckline was slightly lower cut, the dresses were part-dungarees as they had came to the shoulders and were held in place removable straps, and they all wore flip-flop style sandals on their creamy-white feet.

Bounty, not wanting to be left out of the moment, leant over and wrapped her arms around both sisters' waist, and again there was no reaction. The three girls broke up their little love-fest, and turned their excited faces on Buttercup, who backed up across the grass but was unable to get far before they pounced on her.

"Don't worry Buttercup, we don't wanna tickle you," Berry said, pouting adorably.

"What do...you want from...me, then?" Buttercup asked, surprised by this.

"We want you to tickle us", said Bounty, bouncing happily before sitting down and yanking her sandals off her feet, wiggling her toes in Buttercup's direction.

"Can't you just do that to each other?" asked Buttercup, confused. Bounty shook her head.

"Nuh-uh. For some reason, we're not only incapable of tickling ourselves..."

"Well no-one can tickle themself", said Buttercup, before Berry continued.

"...but Princess had her ironic punishment division make us incapable of tickling each other either, which is a pity, as we love being tickled even more than we love the idea of tickling others."

"We don't even know if we ARE ticklish", added Bonnie and her sisters nodded agreement. "We've never found anyone who would help us find out."

"Well," Buttercup said, perking up at the idea of what they were suggesting, "if that's all, I can help ya out." All three girls grew grins so wide they threatened to split their faces in twain.

"Really? That is soooo cool!"

At once, Berry and Bonnie pulled off their flip-flops and all three girls lay flat on the grass, side by side, and waited for Buttercup to begin.

"So," said Berry, "tell us when you're ready, Buttercup."

"I've already started," said Buttercup, feeling a little let down by this turn of events. Being actually asked to tickle 3 girls, and none of them seemed to be even remotely ticklish. Damn.

Buttercup would switch between the three girls at random, so that none of them could know who would be next, but it didn't help; they simply weren't reacting to her tickling, and she had now been doing this for a good five minutes. Toes, arches, soles, heels, between the toes, around the ankles, nothing seemed to work.

The girls sat up so that they could watch Buttercup at work, and gave her tips on what they found worked for tickling (others, of course). Buttercup grew increasingly fed up with this, and chose to stop after several minutes more of exploring.

"Oh pooh!" Bonnie said. All were in complete agreement - it was a terrible shame, but it seemed that they just weren't ticklish. Then a breeze blew up over the park, and as the cooler air wafted past the 3 new puffs' feet, Buttercup noticed their toes began to shift slightly, as though being...tickled! She grinned at them.

"What?" asked Bounty, not understanding. Buttercup didn't answer, but simply lay down on the grass so that her face was right next to the girls feet, and after taking a deep breath in, let it out in one long cool, dry blast against Bounty's feet.

At once, her toes sprang to life, and began to wriggle about wildly, and her feet shook slightly as she strove to hold still. A small grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, and Buttercup - knowing that she was onto something here - took another larger breath and blew it at Bounty's feet again, causing much more squirming and small giggle to slip from between Bounty's pursed lips. She looked to her sisters, a genuine smile forming on her face, and they asked Buttercup eagerly to try tickling them again.

Buttercup turned to face Bonnie's feet next and, after taking the largest breath that she could manage, began blowing it out in a steady stream at Bonnie's feet. At first, this still seemed to have no effect on the other green puff, but after a few seconds her mouth drew into a broad smile and her eyes sparkled with laughter that bubbled up inside her. She chewed her lower lip as the pressure in her chest built up and up...

The sensation faded as Buttercup zoomed off to somewhere, and returned moments later with a large pair of bellows from an abandoned furnace. Buttercup singled Berry out for tickling this time and, pointing the bellows at her, began pumping them in and out about once every five seconds.

The very first blast of air over Berry's soles caused her to squirm in position and her mouth to open into a wide toothy grin. She steadied herself with a large breath, just in time for the second gust, which left her gasping for breath as she began to hiccup involuntarily from the developing laughter, and she pressed her right leg over her left in order to minimise her own writhing as much as possible. The third and final puff from the bellows transformed her hiccups into all-out laughter, as she drew her knees up to her waist and rolled onto her back. Buttercup laughed at watching a simple case of wind tickling someone so efficiently.

"Ha ha! Well, looks like you have a way to tickle yourselves as much as you like from now on, girls," she said, getting up and dusting herself off before floating upwards, as Bounty grabbed the bellows and pointed them at her sisters.

"You're not just...heh heh hee...gonna leave us are ya Buttercup?" asked Bonnie.

"Yeah, sorry", said Buttercup sounding equally disappointed. "My sister's'll probably be looking for me. But I'll come back and visit ya sometime, OK?" The three girls nodded gleefully, and stopped tickling each other long enough to wave goodbye to their new friend.

"Computer: end simulation", Buttercup said, tiredly. She flew to the other side of the Danger Grid, picked up the hopelessly battered Mary-Janes that had dropped some two hundred feet (no pun meant), and dumped them in the trash on the way out, along with many other pairs of shoes and dresses that had been destroyed by monser- and crime-fighting.

Fixing herself a glass of warm milk on the way back to bed, Buttercup thought she heard a sound coming from the lounge, but was far too tired to be bothered; if it didn't attack her, she'd be happy to leave it 'til morning. Right now, she really needed to get to bed.


	10. Blossom: Beauty and the TickleBeast, par...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 6A: Blossom - Beauty and the tickle-Beast

* * *

Blossom awoke minutes before her alarm was set to wake her, and so shut it off so as not to blind herself. She slipped out from underneath her light blankets wearing summer day clothes - a light pink summer dress and a pair of bright pink flip-flops.

Blossom floated to her bedroom door and placed her ear against it, listening for sounds coming from her family in their own rooms. On hearing nothing at all in several minutes, she carefully pulled the door open and floated towards the stairs after closing her door again behind her. Something else caught her attention though.

"Huh?" she whispered to herself when she noticed that Buttercup's bedroom door was open. Floating back over to it, she peeked around the door.

Beyond was what could only be described by any other person as a bombsite; to Buttercup, it was her room in its' natural state, pure entropy at work. Everything lay wherever it had been dropped upon entry. Clothes, books, toys, even training equipment; all scattered randomly across the floor. Buttercup, had she been there, would have argued that it was all organised using her own special filing system that Blossom's overly complex mind could never hope to understand; anyone else would simply call it a mess, as Blossom did.

One thing was missing however. Buttercup's bed was empty, her bed sheets thrown on the floor as she had gotten up for her nocturnal wanderings. This meant that Blossom would have to be careful, and avoid meeting Buttercup in the darkened house.

She quickly floated down the stairs and was just passing over the lounge when she heard a sound. Glancing towards the source of the sound, in the kitchen, she saw Buttercup heating some milk over the stove, before pouring it into a glass and heading back towards her bedroom. Blossom was seconds away from being seen, and whereas Buttercup had an alibi for being out of bed late at night, she had none.

Upon closer inspection, Blossom noticed something else - Buttercup was dressed in her day clothes as well, but her feet were bare, and were also a rosy colour that Blossom had seen all too many times before - usually on Bubbles' feet - from being tickled non-stop for a long while. All this Blossom saw in the seconds before she dove behind the couch.

Blossom watched as Buttercup floated back upstairs, into her room, and closed her door, before emerging from her hiding place and carrying on quickly towards the lab, wishing not to be seen by anyone else on the way.

Once there, she closed the Danger Grid door and called out:

"Computer: Activate scenario Blossom camp suffix random. Begin."

* * *

It was a hot, sunny day in Townsville Forest, where the Pokey Oaks Girl Scouts had gone for the Easter holiday week camp - or rather, four of them. Most of the troop had been taken away by their families for the holiday, so the camp was far smaller than had been initially expected.

All four girls had been taking part in activities for the past 5 days, and were too hot and tired to do anything today. The leaders had sensibly decided to let them have a day of rest before packing up and going home the following morning, and as Blossom was one of the campers, had left her to supervise the other girls and gone shopping in the nearby Townsville hypermarket for the day. This suited the girls just fine, and they spent most of the morning lounging in their tent reading, gossiping, and recounting embarrassing facts about their families.

Now, Blossom was sitting in the tent with the other three, Amanda, Clare and Danielle (though everyone called her Dani). The conversation had changed once more, and they were discussing which boys they most liked at school, as they were all in the same year at Pokey Oaks Middle School.

"I really like Mitch", said Clare, "bad boys are always so much more interesting, dontcha think, Bloss?"

Blossom snorted. "Heh", she said, "bad boy? I've heard from Buttercup that he sleeps with a stuffed teletubby every night!" This drew shocked, hysterical laughter from her friends.

"Alright then, Miss Smarty-Pants", said Amanda, "what about you, then?"

"What, you mean who do I like?"

The others nodded. "Well, there's...nah, I'm not telling. You'd laugh." "We won't. We promise", Danielle said in a whiny, almost desperate voice.

"Nuh-uh. His name is not passing my lips in this conversation", Blossom said, making a 'stop' motion with her arms. "Now, shall we get started on lunch?"

"Oh no, Bloss", said Clare, "you're not getting off that lightly. We've all told, and we're gonna make you talk!"

"How?" asked Blossom. Then she added, "See? There's nothing you can do to make me say anything I don't wanna." And with that, she got up to prepare lunch for herself and her three companions. They stayed huddled in the tent, whispering hurriedly to come up with a plan to make Blossom tell them her secret crush.

Sometime later, after Blossom had served up Sloppy Joes for four and was heading back towards the tent to find the other girls, they sprung their plan on her. All running from the tent as one, Amanda, Clare and Danielle literally jumped on Blossom and threw her roughly to the ground, Clare pinning Blossom on her back, arms to her side, by squeezing with her legs where she knelt in the grass.

"Oof! What do you think you're doing! Get of me Clare!"

"No way", said Clare, and squeezed harder to prevent Blossom wriggling out from beneath her legs.

"We're gonna make you talk," said Amanda, a playful yet devious smile on her face.

"Oh yeah?" Blossom smirked. "Remember; superhero? There's nothing you can do to make me spill."

"We don't believe you", said Danielle.

"Dani, how many times have my sisters and I been captured and tortured by bad guys through the years? You think you can crack me when THEY couldn't?"

"Yep"

Blossom shook her head in mock pity. "You're even more delusional than I thought, then", she said, still smirking.

At this point, Amanda returned with some guy ropes and tent pegs from one of the spare tents that had been packed for the camp.

"What's that lot for?" asked Blossom, apprehension dawning on her. Amanda set about tying the guy ropes around Blossom's ankles and wrists, while Danielle took the task of hammering the tents pegs, hard, into the firm ground, so that almost the whole of each peg was buried. When Clare moved from her perch over Blossom's prone form, Blossom tried to pull out the pegs, but they were buried too deep and she had no leverage, although there was some slight laxness in the lines so that her arms didn't become too tired. Blossom was now effectively tied, spread-eagled and prone on her back on the grassy forest floor, with three of her friends standing over her smirking at the super-heroine's helplessness.

"So what?" asked Blossom, confidently. "You're gonna leave me tied up and hope that I'll crack? The leaders will be back before sundown, ya know. And this is actually quite comfortable, now I don't have Clare sitting on me." Clare stuck her tongue out in response, and Danielle spoke up.

"Actually Bloss, we haven't even started yet."

"Oooh, now I'm real scared. Let's get on with this then; how're you gonna TRY to make me talk?"

"By doing this, said Amanda, kneeling down at Blossom's feet and deftly flipping her sandals off, revealing two soft, pink, and unknown to them also highly ticklish, soles. Then, she cracked her knuckles before reaching out and beginning to run her fingers rapidly over the bottoms of Blossom's feet.

Blossom raised an eyebrow in response. "You're gonna tickle-torture me for information? How lame..." she said, then added, "and clichéd, too."

"Well, we've got a few hours," said Clare, "so don't think you're safe yet, Blossy." A manic grin formed on her face as she sat next to Blossom's chest and began pinching and prodding her along the left side of her ribcage. Blossom showed no signs that this was getting to her in the slightest. Instead she merely lay there, contemplating how long it would most likely take before her friends became bored, and either let her up or else left her tied down and went to have their lunch. She also pondered why Danielle had not joined in yet...

"Guys, guys, guys - you're doing it all wrong," she said, after watching their efforts for several minutes.

"Oh yeah? How'd you know, Dani?" asked Amanda, wishing that Danielle would be more forthcoming with them.

"My big sister used to baby-sit me all the time when I was really little, and she loved to tickle me senseless whenever Mum and Dad were out." "So what would you do differently then?" asked Clare, stopping her own attempt.

"Well, you're doing it too hard for one thing", said Danielle. "Tickling is much more devastating when it's light - plus the Powerpuff Girls are used to being treated harshly by their enemies, right?" Amanda and Clare nodded. "Well, that means they're more desensitised to stronger sensations."

"Ah! I get it now!" said Clare. "Could you, like, show us what you mean, though?" she asked, moving out of the way for Danielle to take a seat next to the bound Powerpuff.

"Sure", answered Danielle, sitting down on Blossom's left side and ripping up a small tuft of grass. "Just watch this," she said, and ever so slowly let the tips of the grass blades glide up and down the inside of Blossom's left arm.

_Hmm, now let me think..._ thought Blossom. _It's about half one now, and the leaders said they wouldn't be back later than five, which means...what?_

She was jerked from her thoughts by the feeling of something very small and smooth being stroked along her arm. Nervously, she tried to look around at what it was, but couldn't see as her arms were pulled back behind her. She could, however, feeling an itching sensation growing on the part of her arm that the grass was in contact with - an itch she felt the distinct need to scratch...

"What?" Asked Amanda. "The arm isn't ticklish, Dani", she pointed out.

"No, you're right", Danielle replied, "BUT the itch I'm producing will keep her distracted so that you can tickle her elsewhere."

"Oh, right. I get ya", said Amanda, and began fluttering her fingertips over Blossom's bared soles at this point. This time, there was an occasional twitch of the toes, as Blossom fought to control her body's reactions.

_Ignore the itch, ignore the itch...o god, that tickles, ignore the tickling, ignore the tick...must scratch...help, I can't do this, I can't concentrate on both at the same...tiiiiiiiiiiime..._

Blossom's tickled right foot was now bouncing rhythmically in time to the tickling that it was receiving.

"See, it's working already", said Danielle, pleased with herself for the idea.

"Yeah, yeah, stop showing off already", Amanda said. "Clare, give us a hand, will ya?"

"Okay", said Clare, plopping herself on the ground on Blossom's other side and caressing Blossom's bare upper ribs with her long fingernails.

"Soooo, Blossom", Amanda began, still lightly fondling Blossom's right foot, "you ready to tell us who this guy is that you like yet?"

"N-never", said Blossom, managing to ejaculate the word with the minimal of stuttering. "I won't talk."

"Really, you're making this quite hard on yourself," said Danielle, now moving to run the clump of grass gently over the vulnerable skin of Blossom's underarm. Blossom stifled a small gasp at the new sensation and her fists clenched tightly.

"Yeah," added Clare, "if you'd just tell us, we'd make a couple of comments and then find a new topic. By not telling us, you're only making us more interested in finding out who he is."

Amanda now brought her other hand into play, and began tenderly running the tips of the fingers on each hand over the fleshy undersides of Blossom's plump toes, causing her to clench them tightly.

"No fair Blossom, trying to avoid the tickling..."

Blossom was trying with all her might to ignore all three friends, but their methods, although similar, differed in some small ways that made it impossible for her brain to ignore all three simultaneously.

_Maybe I should just tell them...no, I can't! I can't and I wo...oh geez, that's bad, that's really...must ignore...what was I thiiiiiiiiiiiiinkiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing?_

She was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain her train of thought - all the sensations she was experiencing were overriding her mind and making it impossible to do anything. She shivered as Clare's fingernails strayed a bit too close to her other vulnerable underarm, and Amanda took the opportunity to softly tickle Blossom's high arches, causing her feet to shake in their bonds and the muscles in her arches to quiver, her toes wriggling around and the skin of her sole stretched tight, making them more sensitive than ever.

"Tell us, Blossom", Danielle sang, reaching out with her other thus far unoccupied hand to scamper her fingers over the material of Blossom's knee-length dress at the point over her belly button.

"No please, I'll do anything, please stop, please!" Blossom said, pleading with them, now shaking her head vigorously from side to side.

"Two words - that's all we want. Just his name; what is it?" asked Clare, still tickling her right side with both hands, all the way from her underarm down to her hip.

"Never!" Blossom almost spat out, followed almost immediately by a muffled giggle.

Blossom managed to regain control of her breathing, to an extent. She was shaking subtly now all over, her breaths were coming short, heavy and unevenly through her nose as she kept her mouth clamped tightly shut, and her feet were curling and flexing spasmodically under Amanda's light tickling of their defenceless soles, twisting around in an effort to escape both the teasing and the bonds. She bit her lower lip, hoping to distract herself from the all-over tickling with pain. Her jaw wobbled as the laughter welled up inside her.

"We've got her girls!" Danielle cheered. "She's weakening! She'll crack soon."

"No...I...won't", Blossom said, grunting out each word with a supreme effort to maintain self-control. Her body was clearly being hugely affected by this overwhelmingly effective tickling, although the only outward signs were her fidgeting feet and the way that her face was screwed up in total concentration.

Amanda had a devilish idea and stopped tickling Blossom's soles so that her feet calmed down and finally lay still. Then, taking eight blades of grass and placing a single one in each space between the toes, she signalled for the others to quit tickling for a while as she went to get something from the store tent.

Just as Blossom had been reaching the point of no return, where the laughter would burst out of her and refuse to be contained again, all the tickling feelings died away. She sighed in relief and let her body, which had subconsciously tensed up under the torture of the last ten minutes, fall limp.

"Thanks guys, I'm glad you...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha!"

When Amanda had returned, she had been holding in her hand a bag of frozen peas that she had taken from the cold storage box, and had unceremoniously slapped it against Blossom's well-tickled soles. The cold had been such a shock to her system in the exceptionally hot weather that her legs shook violently and her toes wriggled as if they were trying to escape from being attached to the ends of her feet. As they did, however, the grass blades moved in a sawing motion, back and forth, between her toes, which tickled immensely. The resulting combination of cold and tickling broke Blossom's dam of willpower entirely, and the laughter just came flooding out.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...O GOD NONONONONO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE HEEEHEEEHEEEHEEE..."

Blossom's laughter rapidly died down from being loud, high-pitched shrieks that Bubbles would have been proud of, to a steady flow of gut wrenching laughter and violent shaking; Amanda, Clare and Danielle were startled by how much strength the Puff still had whilst being tickled so much all over.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO PLEEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEASE STOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOP STOPPIT I CAN'T TAKE HAHAHAHAHAHANYMOHOHOHORE..."

Blossom's whole body clenched tight in massive spasms of laughter, and the guy ropes were pulled tight as she tried to curl up on the ground beneath her friends. The tent pegs began to straighten into just plain metal rods where they were buried in the ground.

"Are ya sure she's secure?" Asked Danielle.

"Am I?" said Amanda, "you're the one who pegged her down, Dani."

All three girls were afraid at what might happen if Blossom broke free of her bindings; they didn't have to wait long, as they had continued tickling her - Amanda tickling the ultra-sensitive and rapidly wriggling and writhing feet, Clare stroking the right side of Blossom's visibly defined, heaving, ribcage with the ends of her manicured fingernails, and Danielle squeezing Blossom's left hip with one hand and brushing her left underarm with the tuft of grass in the other hand.

Blossom gave one massive scream of "HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!", as she finally managed to curl into a ball on the ground, and her bladder let loose under the continuous tickling assault. All three girls at one stopped tickling, although Blossom's laughter did not die down for another five minutes.

"O god, that tihihihihihihickled soooohoohohohohohohoohoohoo much... heeheeheeheeheeheehee tee hee hee hee..."

Finally, the hilarity stopped, and Blossom sat up in a small puddle in the muddy ground and surveyed the destruction around her.

Amanda, Clare and Danielle had all leapt back, moments before the guy ropes had let fly from the ground, and were cringing several feet away, shielding themselves with their arms and wary to move for fear of what awful revenge their super-powered friend might choose to take on them.

The guy ropes were shredded, the tent pegs were just straight metal rods, and the ground beneath her was muddy and - wet. The back of her dress was covered in said mud, all her muscles ached - especially those in her stomach and around her mouth - and she could smell...

"O god - please tell me I didn't...?"

"Sorry Bloss", said Clare. "We didn't think all that'd happen just from tickling you."

"Well maybe next time you plan something like this," said Blossom, grinning wryly, "you'll think twice about attacking me again."

"On the other hand," said Amanda, handing Blossom back her flip-flops and helping her to her feet, "at least we know now how to get ya goin'". She prodded Blossom in her stomach, causing the Powerpuff to double over in a renewed bout of laughter and to try to slap Amanda's hand away. "See?"

"Eeeee!...No hahaha fair..."

At last, when they had all calmed down, Blossom appraised her appearance. The back of her dress, and of her legs, was caked in mud. Her entire lower half was wet and she was beginning to smell, too. When Danielle suggested that she take a shower, a better idea occurred to Blossom.

"How about we all go skinny dipping instead?" she asked (sorry, an image for the guys:P).

"Cool!"

All four girls quickly divested themselves of their clothing and ran over to the lake, which they were camped right next to and jumped straight in - the water being only neck deep on them. Blossom briefly washed herself and her hair whilst the others played in the water, and then said, "All done...blub!"

Clare had taken the opportunity of Blossom turning to face her, and hand splashed, causing a wall of water to fall over Blossom's head, drenching her momentarily.

"You did NOT just do that!" Blossom shouted in mock outrage, the image ruined by the smile creasing her face. Danielle at that moment splashed both Clare and Blossom, but Clare ducked just in time under the surface.

"Hey - quit it! Why are you all picking on me?"

"Oh come of it Bloss, you can look after yourself", said Amanda, floating on her back some distance away.

"Hey, where'd Clare go?" asked Danielle.

"I dun...aaaaaah! Something's got my leg!" Blossom said.

Indeed, something had - Clare. After diving under the neck-deep water, she has sat on the bottom of the lake next to where Blossom was standing, and reached out to grab Blossom's ankles. She then wiggled her fingers over the back of the knee, and Blossom's leg buckled out from under her.

"AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha...not ahahahaahahahahahahahahagain!" Blossom said through her once more unbroken giggling fit. Seconds later Clare surfaced, still holding Blossom by the ankle, and pulled up on it, causing Blossom to tip over and end up standing on her head underwater. Luckily, one of the Powerpuff Girls abilities was being able to breathe under the water, so Blossom was never in any danger of drowning. The first thing she saw when she reopened her eyes was a wobbly vision of Clare's feet, and so she did the only natural thing she could in the circumstances - she reached out and grabbed Clare's right foot in turn, and tickled the tops of her toes ever so lightly. Her own laughter caused a veritable torrent of bubbles to float up to the surface and pop quite audibly.

"Ha! Gotcha again Bloss...what's...heh...that?" Clare said, and shifted slightly as she felt something stroking her toes. They wiggled subconsciously under the counterattack. Whatever it was didn't stop; in fact, it grew. Clare could feel her leg growing weaker, and noticed too late that Amanda, and Danielle, were closing on her position. Before she could do anything, they converged on her and began prodding and poking her stomach, her ribs, under her arms, and she found it harder to keep herself standing up.

Clare swayed mightily from side to side as the tickling weakened her defences, and very soon her feet left the lake floor and didn't return. She was now floating helplessly on her back as Blossom came up for air, and along with Amanda and Danielle, began revenge tickling Clare on the backs of her knees to keep her from righting herself in the water.

At this point, the hotline chose to ring. Of course, the hotline was not in Townsville Forest, but the girls always kept their mobile phones close by. These were tied into the hotline connection so that they could go about their everyday business, yet still be ready for action at a moment's notice.

Blossom left Amanda and Danielle to explore Clare's body for more tickle spots while she flew to the shore, grabbed a big, pink, fluffy towel and her mobile from the tent, and began drying herself off as she answered the call.

"Hello, Mayor?" She said, still half-listening to the joyful yelps of laughter issuing from out on the lake.

"Yes, Blossom," said Mayor Bellum. "We have an emergency - I know you're on camp, but your sisters - they've been kidnapped." "What? How?" Said Blossom, suddenly completely at the alert as she used her super-speed to dry and dress herself in seconds.

"I honestly don't know, Blossom. I called them earlier today to go on a surveillance mission, leaving you behind because you were on camp, and they never reported back." "What was the surveillance mission?" Blossom asked, as she found a clean pair of flip-flops in her kit bag.

"We were recently tipped off that Mojo Jojo has a secondary base deep in Townsville Forest, where he stores most of his most deadly weapons - including a massive secret stash of Antidote X. Special Ops couldn't penetrate the base, so we sent your sisters in to find out what's in there and report back. We know they went in, but we've not seen nor heard from them since. I think Mojo may be experimenting on them, trying to discover some heretofore hidden weakness he can exploit to finally destroy you."

Blossom shuddered to think what "weakness" he may have found - or how he may be "experimenting" on Bubbles and Buttercup. "OK Mayor, give me the details. Where do I go?"

Briefly, the mayor told Blossom the co-ordinates of the base and how her sisters had entered it. Blossom, assuming that entry would be compromised, would have to find alternate access.

"This is strictly Find and Rescue, Blossom. You must not attempt to destroy the base, we don't know what devastation that could cause. Understand?"

"Understood, Mayor." Blossom said, setting off on the mission to find and rescue her sisters, after first telling her friends where she was going.

Mojo - would - pay.


	11. Blossom: Beauty and the TickleBeast, par...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

**

Hairy Gregory Studios

**

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 6B: Beauty and the Tickle-Beast

* * *

Blossom's first thought had been to fly straight to the coordinates of Mojo Jojo's secret lair - then she realised that he'd easily see her before she could get close enough before he would spot her and do something terrible to her sisters. Instead, she decided that she should proceed on foot, and called to her friends - still splashing and tickling each other in the lake - that she would be gone for a while and to inform the leaders upon their return if she had not by then returned.

Blossom headed off deeper into the forest in the direction that Mayor Bellum had instructed her to, keeping a careful watch for any surveillance or weapons belong to the evil monkey. She walked for half an hour or so before coming to a giant tree that had fallen across the broad path she was walking along, and was about to simply float over it and continue when she heard noises up ahead. Her natural instincts took over and propelled her to dive down, hiding in a ditch that was partially covered by the dead tree trunk.

A few moments later, three beings flew almost directly over her head and continued up along the route she had followed to this point. Peeking out of her shelter, Blossom was able to get a good look at them from the back.

She gasped. "They look just like me!" she said in a whisper. The girl bringing up the rear of the group stopped in mid-air, listening for the slightest sound, and Blossom knew she had been heard by the look-alike. Crouching deeper in the smallish hole, she held her breath and waited for the girls to leave.

"What's the hold-up, Three?" asked the girl at the front, as she and her other companion stopped a little further up.

"I thought I heard something", said the girl known as Three.

"Probably just a small creature, One", suggested the middle girl, shrugging casually.

"You're probably right," said the front girl, called One. Then, in very low tones, she said to Three, "hide out of sight for a while. If someone is nearby, they'll reveal themselves sooner or later." Blossom hadn't heard this last part though. All three girls continued on out sight around a sharp corner in the path and, after waiting another couple of minutes, Blossom decided she should be safe enough to move on. Crawling out of the hole, she floated over the trunk.

At once, Three flew over from her hiding place and pushed her to the ground.

"Ouch!"

"Freeze!" said Three. Blossom did in fact remain motionless - now that she got a good look at the girl, they appeared identical; face, hair, eyes, even the clothing, matched perfectly. Blossom didn't understand why, but it appeared this girl was her exact clone, down to the minutest detail.

"What is your designation?" asked Three, and Blossom gave a mildly puzzled look to the girl.

"My name is Blos..." she started, but never finished the sentence as she was thrown bodily at a nearby tree. Stopping just short of impact, Blossom righted herself in the air and charged at her clone fists first.

"What was that for?" Blossom asked, as she struck Three in the chin, sending her to the ground some thirty feet away and forming a crater in the soft soil.

"You are not one of the master's servants; you are an original Powerpuff Girl, and so must be neutralised and apprehended, at any cost", she answered in a toneless, almost robotic, voice.

"Like hell!" Blossom grabbed Three up from her current position and threw her at another tree - an oak, which cracked into two. When the dust cloud settled, Three simply stood up and glared at Blossom.

"You can't stop us, Blossom." One and Two arrived back on the scene, drawn by the sounds of combat, and flanked Three. All three girls rushed at Blossom in a blatant attempt to overpower her. While they looked, sounded and dressed identically to Blossom, these clones lacked most of her personality and her fighting strategies. Blossom was able to dodge most of their attacks, and the rest were either blocked or deflected back at the clones, weakening them considerably.

Blossom kicked out at One, but was surprised when the girl reacted by grabbing Blossom's ankle with both hands and refusing to let go. She tried to push One away from her by kicking the girl in the chest, but One's grip was incredibly too firm for her to budge. Swinging a fist at the Two to keep her away, Blossom didn't see Three behind her, about to pin her arms.

Too late, Blossom realised she had been outflanked by her own clones, and tried to kick Three away with her still-free leg. Three dodged the first kick, blocked the second, dodged the third desperately flailing kick, and finally seize her lower leg on the fourth try.

Blossom was stuck; she wasn't able to escape their grip, but they couldn't fly with such a large and unwieldy payload, especially as she kept thrashing about in an effort to throw them off.

A metaphorical light bulb went on over her head, and Blossom at once blew her ice breath at One, who counted with her own return blast. The two icy gales struck each other and neatly balanced near the middle, Blossom trying to blow hers around her clones. The path of the ice wind passed over her scantily clad foot, causing it at once to turn into a footcicle.

"Aaaaa!"

Blossom's ice breath stopped at the sudden shock, and One's iciness froze her over momentarily. Once Blossom had defrosted, she looked down to see One slipping her flip-flop off the right foot that she held. Blossom, scared witless at the idea of what these fiendish replicas may do to her, curled her toes around the toe-strap as tight as possible. When Three made the same motions over her left foot, Blossom again curled her toes around the strap.

"You're obviously a very sensitive girl, aren't you Blossom?" asked Two, as she stroked Blossom's upper arms. Goosebumps sprang up over the skin; Blossom whimpered faintly. "Don't worry - we were ordered to bring you in while causing minimum physical harm." She grinned evilly, which Blossom couldn't see.

Blossom had to think quickly - apologising in advance to her stomach, she bent sharply to place her head between her feet, knocking the three clones' heads together and stunning them momentarily. When all four got to their feet, the clones all looked around , confused. Each clone could tell that they were a clone, but couldn't pick out the other two as they all look indistinguishable from each other.

Aha! Blossom thought, exultantly, they can't tell which one is the real me! Perhaps I can use this to my advantage... Blossom joined her doubles in glancing around quizzically, beaming inside at her good fortune.

One of the clones lifted up right arm, and Blossom was unsure what she was doing at first. It soon became apparent precisely what her intention was, however, when she began lightly scrabbling her fingers around in her underarm.

Realisation of what was going on dawned on Blossom at the same moment as the sensation hit her - a soft tickle in her right underarm, and an urge to clamp that arm tight to her side that she had to fight to resist, as it would easily give her away. Obviously, they were capable of transmitting tickling sensations on their own bodies to her, either through some sort of engineered telepathic link, or an implant of some kind. Either way, it meant that when One tickled herself, Blossom felt it. Her eyes went wide at the implications.

She could feel the first giggles welling up in her stomach, and tightened her tummy muscles as much as she could to control it. She told herself to just relax - after all, no one can tickle themselves that much, can they?

That little pep talk lasted as long as it too for a second clone to begin pinching poking and prodding her ribcage, and the sensations were instantly transmitted back to the original, accept-no-substitutes Blossom. Blossom clamped her jaw securely shut, and willed herself to remain silent regardless. Focusing her breathing into a slower, calmer pattern, she lifted her t-shirt and began to lightly scratch her faintly twitching tummy, to hopefully show that she too wasn't the real Blossom.

Blossom knew - she just knew - that if she cracked before they gave up, and started laughing or squirming about or whatever, then the clones would be on her in a matter of seconds and would most likely begin tickling her into a hysterical heap right away. There was absolutely no way she was going to let herself be subjected to that. She simply had to tough it out, even though she could feel the laughter bubbling up inside of her and could hear her pulse pounding in her head as she nearly had to hold her breath to control her actions.

The third Blossom got this evil grin on her face - So that's what I'd look like with an evil grin thought Blossom, sweating slightly from the combination of the heat and the tickling that was so wearing down her defences. - and plopped herself down on the ground, legs bent around in front of her. Reaching out, the Blossom sitting on the ground prepared to begin her own self-tickling, and Blossom's toes involuntarily curled, for what good it would do; the tickling wasn't real, not on her body; the sensations were being transmitted to her remotely, so there was absolutely no way to block the tickling by covering the afflicted area.

If she goes for the feet, I'm really done for, Blossom thought worriedly. But where else would she...

Blossom never even finished that thought, as the sitting copy of her started spidering her fingers behind her knees. Suppressing a small giggly gasp and letting out a mental "Eeep!", Blossom had to steady herself, otherwise the tickling behind her left knee would have caused her to fall the ground - a sure-fire way to give away her identity to her would-be attackers. The tendons in her knee stood out taut against the skin, as she made every effort to remain standing, despite the extreme teasing behind her left knee. Shifting her weight surreptitiously across to her right leg help for a moment, but Blossom swayed slightly nonetheless.

Seconds later, the same feelings became perceptible on the right knee too, and now Blossom was in serious trouble; she kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, swaying slightly as though tipsy (and more than a little giggly, on the inside), and tried to think of something to keep her mind occupied. Her legs began to shake ever so slightly, and she chewed on her lower lip to keep the tittering in.

Why the knees? she thought to herself through the torture. Anywhere but the knees - they're my worst tickle spot of all.

Indeed they were, and the strain of ignoring so much tickling on so many parts of her body was getting to Blossom. Beads of sweat became visible as her concentration began to waver between the three pairs of hands she could feel prodding and poking, stroking and scampering all over her vulnerable flesh (not to mention the tickling she was pretending to administer to herself). Her vision blurred as holding her breath was starting to make her feel slightly faint.

The other two facsimiles looked over at the third tickling herself behind her knees, and both seemed to agree that this was an excellent course of action to proceed along. The first clone switched from tickling her armpit to reach behind herself and tickle her knees instead, and Blossom's alarm grew through the haze that all the tickling was impressing on her mind. She tottered about even more, and for just a moment her legs gave way beneath her.

As the second duplicate also moved from tickling her ribs to behind her legs, Blossom's own legs buckled under her entirely, unable to support her against the tide of tickling that she could feel from six separate hands, feeling three hands tickling each leg. Before she even reached the ground, the laughter burst out of her mouth and she knew that all hope was gone as the others quickly approached and began to thoroughly tickle her all over.

One clone now tickled her heaving stomach, swirling around with her manicured fingernails and then occasionally dipping into her belly button to scratch at pretend pieces of lint caught there, which would elicit fresh bouts of squeals every time for the poor defenceless girl. Another clone let her hands wander slowly up and down Blossom's ribs, from just beneath the last rib all the way up both sides of her chest to her armpits where they would tickle her for some thirty seconds or so at a time, and then make the return journey at an equally slow speed.

The third clone had gone straight for her feet, and Blossom again hopelessly tried to protect her extremities by clamping her toes around the bands of the sandals. With one quick stroke along each arch, the clone managed to force Blossom to uncurl and spread her toes wide and instantly the sandals were yanked off and dropped to one side, and the fingers were everywhere on her light pink and completely callus free - for Blossom regularly gave herself pedicures - feet, all over her soles and snaking between her toes whenever they unclenched, which was often.

Blossom's laughter was seemingly unending, as her copies drove her to new heights of laughter. Every time she tried to cover herself it was futile, as being three on one, they simply stretched her back out and continued where they had left off. She couldn't resist their strength now, not even if there was only one of them tickling her, for the tickling had driven all of her own strength out of her, making her as weak and helpless as a newborn babe.

Finally, after some time of being tickled like this, they stopped and Blossom's panting turned to whimpers and finally died away completely as, exhausted, she fell asleep.

* * *

When Blossom awoke, she was in a cell made out of cold, hard metal. She sat up on the similarly cold and hard metal bed, and saw that where there would normally be a door in a wall stood a grid of bars, such as in a stereotypical jail cell. She could hear cackling laughter in the distance, that and lots of repetitive speech...

Mojo Jojo!

It all came back to her - her mission to find her sisters, and being caught by her clones. So their "master" was the nefarious chimp himself, but why did he want her if he could already clone her for his own evil ends?

Her train of thought was broken as the vile monkey appeared on the other side of the bars, and began prattling away.

"Ah, Powerpuff Blossom, it is so good to see that you are awake and able to move around freely within the confines of your cell, as if you were not awake you could not move around, freely or otherwise, regardless of whether you were confined or..."

"Get to the point, Mojo." The girls had long ago given up listening to his inane diatribes.

"Very well then, I will." Mojo Jojo took a deep breath, and forced himself to speak more slowly than usual, so that he could prune his rather verbose vocabulary to a minimum.

"The girls who accosted you outside in the forest did not work for me - Him created them, as he wanted them to attack and perform questionable acts on my person. Needless to say, it didn't work, so he had them guard me instead so that I cannot leave. I saved you from them."

"Why?" Blossom said. Clearly, Mojo Jojo would have some ulterior motive in all of this - he'd never save a Powerpuff Girl unless there was no other course of action left open to him.

"To see what makes you girls tick, and find a way to defeat both you and His clones of you."

"Figures", Blossom said, wryly. "Well, I won't help you."

Mojo grinned maniacally at this, showing his pointy yellow teeth. "You won't have a choice in the matter, my dear. I shall be back for you in ten minutes, once I have my equipment set up." And with an attempt at a majestic sweep of his cape, he turned and left.

Blossom looked around her cell again, and deduced that the walls would be made of super-strength resistant metals - Mojo Jojo had a large supply of such minerals. She also saw an air vent, and floated towards it...he hadn't disabled her powers! Mojo was clearly getting lax in his diabolical schemes.

Blossom floated up to the air vent and pulled the cover from it before flying inside and reattaching the cover so as not to arouse undue suspicion. Her sandals - he had managed to retrieve them too, how pointless she thought - squeaked as they slid along the polished inner surfaces of the duct.

Blossom had no idea which way she needed to go in order to escape the duct system, and so just crawled in one single direction, turning only when she could not continue straight on. At last, she came to another exit directly in front of her, which looked out on a large room; clearly, the hub of Mojo Jojo's operations, this chamber was packed with all sorts of scientific equipment. Perhaps she should leave the tunnels and find an exit from this room? As she began to slither forwards, an extraction fan turned on behind her by pure chance, masking any sounds she may make. It quickly picked up in speed, and Blossom dug her fingers hard into the tunnel floor to keep from being pulled back and into the fan's blades. She could feel her grip slipping, and one of her sandals was pulled from her feet, as was the ribbon in her hair, and both were sucked away and sliced into pieces, part of the sandal jamming the fan blades and bringing it to a halt.

Blossom sighed in relief and hurriedly vacated the air duct, floating up by the ceiling to avoid detection by Mojo Jojo, who had just entered the room through a door on the far side of the fairly large room. As she watched him pottering about down below, checking instruments, setting up cameras, etc; she didn't notice a small butterfly, which had managed to slip into the base through the ventilation system, that had decided her bare foot was a perfect place to stop and rest.

"Ack!" Blossom twisted sharply to try and shoo the butterfly away, but it didn't seem to want to leave its resting place, and flapped its wings, making Blossom wriggle in ticklish agony. "Eeeeee!" The tickling got to her, and she rapidly lost height as her flying ability deserted her. It didn't really matter, as Mojo Jojo had heard her by this point and was waiting for her to land, escape being impossible.

Landing as gracefully as she possibly could (and at last ridding herself of the pesky insect on her foot), Blossom stood with her arms folded and facing her arch-nemesis once more. Before she could react, he fired a ray guy at her - how typical, she thought - and found upon trying to retaliate with her eyebeams that her powers were gone; he brandished his weapon, revealing "Anti-X energy cannon" scrawled on its side in red crayon.

"Hahahahah!"

"Damn!" Blossom muttered, and took a step towards the manic chimp, intent on simply throttling him with her bare hands. The first step was all right, as her flip-flops were non-slip slipslop flip-flops™ and were able to grip properly on the smooth steel floor plates.

The second step wasn't, as her bare foot was unable to gain a proper purchase on the flooring, and she slid.

"Haa haa!" Mojo Jojo taunted her. Blossom snarled in reply.

Her arms pin-wheeled in the air as she tried to regain her balance, only to lose it again moments later each time. In the process, her remaining sandal flew off her foot, and she ended up slipping all over the place simply trying to stay upright. At long last, Blossom found an equilibrium, of sorts - there was no way she could move without falling over; her feet were precariously braced against the glossy floor, her long hair flowing totally loose, which was naturally ankle length after so many years of refusing to have it cut for any reason, was wrapped around her legs, and then the worst thing possible happened.

A single strand of her own hair tickled the back of her knee.

She shook, she trembled, she quivered; she tried desperately to retain her position against all odds, but that one little tickle overwhelmed all her mental defences even more efficiently than the three clones had managed. Sliding to the floor, Blossom giggled and squealed as she ended up doing an impromptu "splits" on the cold metal surface.

Mojo Jojo, nonplussed by this whole scene playing before him, grabbed Blossom up and placed her in an energy bubble that would not let her out, but would let other things (including himself) in so that he could examine her in detail. The experiment had now begun...

"MwhahahahahahahahahahaaHAHAHAHAHAHA...!"

* * *

To be continued...


	12. Blossom: Beauty and the TickleBeast, par...

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 6C: Beauty and the Tickle-Beast

* * *

"What was the purpose of your laughter?" Mojo asked the caged Blossom, forgetting for once that the Powerpuff Girls were his enemies and indulging in pure scientific curiosity. "Surely you cannot be happy that you have been caught?"

"Mojo," Blossom began, claming down rapidly from her ticklish bout of laughter, "for such an intelligent super-evolved chimp, you can on occasion be incredibly dense. I laughed because I was being tickled."

Mojo Jojo just stared at her inquisitively. "Tickled? What is this?"

Blossom slapped her forehead. "O dear lord, don't tell me you don't know what tickling is?" Mojo Jojo shook his head, causing his turban cap to rattle a little. "Okay, I'll try to explain."

"You see, it's a very mild form of pain - some think it's a defunct part of the bodies early warning system to defend from predators, others think it's part of familial bonding. Tickling is when you touch or stroke another person and it makes them laugh and jerk about. Got it?"

A light went on in Mojo Jojo's brain as he quickly processed this information and tried to work how her could use it to his advantage. Turning to his control console, he adjusted some dials and Blossom felt her arms and legs being stretched as though pulled by some very strong creature, until she was spread-eagled across the centre of the bubble. She was still wearing her t-shirt and shorts, but her sandals were lost somewhere in the chamber, and she was trapped. Not that they would've provided much protection from the inquiring primate anyhow.

Reaching forward into the bubble, Mojo moved his stubby fingers towards Blossom's kneecap and began scratching, quite hard. Blossom scrunched up her nose at the feeling, and upon thinking this over, Mojo decided that his first attempt at "tickling" hadn't been a breathtaking success. Pulling back, her rubbed his chin and considered what he had done wrong. Then, coming to the conclusion that he needed a larger concentration of nerve endings, he repeated the process by scratching the bottom of Blossom's right foot. She pulled back sharply, or tried to, but it caused the bubble to bounce back and away from him.

"Ow! Stop that", she shouted, glaring at him from inside her bubble. "What on Earth do you think you're trying to do to me?"

"Tickle you", he said, simply, puzzled at his second lack of success. "It seems a very effective method of providing painless and long-lasting torture, if only I knew how to administer it correctly, I could possibly defeat you and your sisters permanently without even needing to construct a device to try to destroy you."

"Well..." Blossom thought over her options. If Mojo gave up on this line of reasoning, he may resort to more...direct methods of torture, and she couldn't expect a rescue, so she had to stay as able as possible in order to have a hope of escape. If that meant letting this...this monster tickle her, could she stomach it?

"You've kinda got the idea by tickling my feet," she said, and tried to motion with her arms, to find all that happened was the spherical energy cage spun about its axis. "But you need to be softer." _Why am I helping him - he'd figure it out himself anyway..._

"Like this?" Putting his hand back into the bubble, he ran the fur on the back of his palm over her calf, and she giggled softly despite the innate strangeness and possible danger of the situation.

"Yes...hee hee hee hee heeeeee..."

"Good..." he said, and grinned evilly as he ran his fur now over the sole of her foot, and her laughter grew louder. Blossom tried to hold still as the light tickling was making it increasingly difficult for her to hold still, and whenever she moved, her whole body moved because it was attached to the bubble.

Without warning, Mojo Jojo suddenly stopped tickling and walked back over to his console.

"This is getting me nowhere", he muttered, as he pressed a few buttons and Blossom felt the energy ball roll over so that she was lying on her back in mid-air, tilted forwards a little bit. As she regained her senses once the tickly feelings had subsided, she began to jerk and thrash about, trying to escape, but she couldn't move her body at all any more.

"Mojo...? Mojo, what are you doing!" Blossom asked, panicked. Mojo Jojo strolled purposefully back over to her, and leant into the bubble, moving for Blossom's feet; the only motion still afforded to the poor puff was the ability to wriggle her fingers and toes; beyond that, she was utterly at the manic monkey's mercy.

"Why Blossom, I would've thought that obvious, especially to you." His grin grew even larger. "I'm going to tickle you to death." He reached out again and began running his fur over the soles of her feet. Her toes twitched faintly but beyond that, she gave no signs that it affected her.

Blossom knew that this time, she was literally fighting for her life; Mojo Jojo most probably had all sorts of gadgets that he could use to tickle her - if not, he could easily build some with all of his mechanical skills. But whatever, he would want to break her personally before leaving her to die from hysterics.

_It's just a simulation, _she thought. _Two hour time limit - there's gotta be only about 30 minutes left anyway. All I have to do is hold out 'til then, and it'll shut...down..._

In fact, it was even less than that; the simulation only had ten minutes left, but Blossom knew not of this. Her toes wriggled as much as they could under the teasing from his furry paws, and she closed her eyes to help herself focus.

"You cannot escape, Blossom," Mojo Jojo said, trying to destroy her confidence or, at the very least, her concentration. "I can keep this going all day long - I could even fill your energy prison with low-level static electricity and let that tickle you instead if I get too tired to continue. You must know that you cannot continue indefinitely; sooner or later, you'll crack, and that will be the end of you!"

"Nn-n-n-n-n-n-n-never, Mojo", Blossom stuttered out, and tried in vain to cover her tickled sole with her other foot; both legs were locked firmly in place though, so there was no way that Blossom could protect herself at all. Even if she had been free to move, the tickling was weakening her so much that she may not have been able to protect herself anyway. She could feel her cheeks flushing as she had to hold her breath to keep the giggles in. She wanted so much to squirm away from his tickly fur, but the energy prison held fast.

The tingling sensations that coursed through her body confused the Powerpuff; she hated being out of control, usually; more so, she hated giving in to her enemies; and yet here she was, willingly participating in a simulation where she was being tickled silly by her greatest foe, and all it would take to stop it would be a single command to the computer. So, why didn't she give that command?

Mojo Jojo was grinning sadistically as he watched Blossom's lips twitch to retain control of her laughter, and ran his fur underneath her toes, certain that this would also be a highly ticklish area for her; unsurprisingly, he was proven right as her eyes bulged and her nostrils flared at the light touches. Her blush deepened and spread over her neck. Breathing through her nose helped Blossom maintain some semblance of self-control, though that too was beginning to slip as her breathing was becoming more erratic, faster, shallower.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she struggled hard to banish it from sight. Closing her eyes, Blossom again tried to focus, to block out the sensations...

"Kitchee kitchee coo, Powerpuff Blossom..." Mojo Jojo sang in his deep throaty voice. "I can tell that this is getting to you; why don't you take a nice, big breath and let it all go? It'll be over so much quicker that way..." He laughed, manically. Blossom had an inexplicable urge to laugh with him, as his fur stroked between her toes.

Fighting with all her willpower available at that moment, she managed to scrunch her toes ever so slightly, but not enough to catch his tickly hair. Even curling her toes just a little was incredibly tiring, trying to resist the energy field, and Blossom felt the laughter welling up more forcefully in her stomach. Her muscles relaxed again and her toes fanned out once more as her vision became blurred from the continual lack of oxygen.

"You know you're gonna give, Blossom; make it easy on yourself", Mojo Jojo said, secretly hoping that Blossom wouldn't give in that easily; he was having far too much fun breaking her slowly to want to stop just yet.

Blossom's chest was heaving as she attempted to continue to breathe without letting the laughter out; lungs burning, she managed one short, raspy breath after another. _As long as he keeps doing that, I should be OK. I may even become desensitised to it_ she thought.

The evil monkey, sensing her beginning to ease into the tickling, decided that the best course of action was to throw her off-balance, metaphorically speaking. Moving around so that one claw was still tickling Blossom's spasming instep muscles and twitching toes on her right foot, he reached up under her t-shirt and began to scribble his other claw quickly and randomly over her shaking stomach. Blossom's eyes almost bugged right out, and she let loose a single, powerful laugh.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Mojo Jojo shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, never stopping to give Blossom a single moment's rest. Climbing up to sit on top of her, he slid his hands further up under her t-shirt to now tickle her upper ribs and the edges of her armpits, while his feet tickled over her trembling tummy and his tail snaked down between her legs to alternate tickling behind each knee.

The pressure was just too much for Blossom at this stage, and she began vibrating subtly under Mojo's tender ministrations. Unable to move, even to shift position faintly, Blossom lay completely helpless as the tickling finally took its toll on her. She tried one brief, ultimately futile, attempt to save herself, however.

"N-n-n-n-n-oooooooooooooo...heh...co-hic-compu-u-u-u-u-u-u-uter, ehehehehehehend pr...heh...hehehehehehehehehe...hahahahahaha...hahahahahahahahahahahaha...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Once the floodgates opened, the laughter quickly poured out; several times over the next few minutes, Blossom again attempted to voice the end program command, only to be thwarted in each and every single attempt by a fresh bout of unmanageable laughter. It took five whole minutes before the flood of hysterical laughter eventually gave way to a steady trickle of ticklish giggles. Blossom just stayed lying there, tittering and hopelessly out of control of her own body, like a silly little schoolgirl.

By this time, Mojo was completely lost in his task of tickling the super-heroine to death, and eagerly drank in each fresh burst of laughing. Turning around, he tickled Blossom's ribs with his feet, around her neck with his tail, and stretched down to lick her toes, drawing fresh chuckling from the poor puff.

"P-pp-p-p-p-p-p-p-please Mohohohohohohohohohohohohohohojo...no mohohohohohohohohohohohohore...hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

Blossom's face and upper body were by now bright red, as were the soles of her feet - especially beneath her ultra-sensitive toes -, which had been tickled raw over the course of the holo-simulation. She could feel something stirring deep inside her, and the tickling became more pleasurable, even as he tried to drive her to death by laughing. A pleasurable tingling began to spread over her already shattered body, and it caused her to let out an occasional small moan between fits of laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...oh!...hahahahahahahahahahahaha-mmmmmmmm...hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...squeal...eeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE! Nnnnnnnnnnnn...o god hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..."

Mojo Jojo sensed the change in her laughter, among other things, and seemingly reacting on impulse now in an attempt to finish what he had started, he took her toes into his mouth and nibbled them gently. The feelings sent Blossom to new ticklish heights, and goosebumps sprang up all over her as she felt alternately incredibly flushed from all the teasing and tickling, and then suddenly chilled to the bone. A faint light pink aura surrounded her as her skin shone with perspiration.

"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...comput...hee hee hee hee...comp... hee hee hee hee hee hee...com... hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...co... hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...cohee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...c...c...c...c... hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee...hiccup...ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO"

She could feel her clothes sticking to her all over, as she was now very hot and sticky indeed, and yet Mojo Jojo would not let up; he was determined to end this, one way or another. He nibbled on the tips of her toes, and swirled his tongue nimbly between them, sending Blossom to levels of ticklishness she had never before known existed. The tail tickling around her neck didn't do much to add to his semi-pleasurable torture, but his feet tickling rapidly up and down her sides, counting and re-counting her ribs one by one as they went, were driving her nearly insane. Her chest was quite sore now, throbbing with pain from the amount of laughter that had been forced from her.

All at once, as Mojo Jojo switched to nibbling the toes of her other foot, the shock of her saliva-coated toes coming back into contact with the cool fresh air sent her totally over the year, bellowing out in extreme torture and bliss at the same time.

"Hahahahahahaha...ooooooooooooooooh mmmmmmmmmmmmmmy...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA!"

The aura around her flared a brilliant pink for a brief moment, and the energy barrier around Blossom shattered into a million pieces on contact with the aura's force. Mojo Jojo was sent flying across his own laboratory, bouncing off the far wall some twenty feet (no puns, please) away, and crashing to the ground, his helmet caved in by the impact. He got to his feet, took one step towards the Powerpuff, and fell over again; he didn't get up a second time, but lay there panting for breath.

Blossom simply lay on the floor, blithering incoherently for some long moments, covered from head to toe in sweat - and on her toes in monkey saliva - with all her clothes sticking rather uncomfortably to her body. Stumbling to her feet, Blossom gave a small squeak at the cold of the floor against her still to sensitised feet, and floated slowly across the room to recover her lost flip-flops, swaying as she went, her eyes glazed over and half-closed from exhaustion.

"...computer...end...end...end pr...program", she panted, and the simulation at once closed down, and Blossom found herself once more floating in the Danger Grid, wearing nothing at all and with her now once-more clean clothes in a small heap on the other side of the room (remember, she changed into holographic clothes at the end of the first part of this). Shivering with cold, Blossom zipped over and put on her real sandals, grabbed the rest of her clothing up, and flew up the stairs as fast as she dared in her current state of tiredness.

Dumping her clothes on the floor of her bedroom the instant she was past the bedroom door, she dove into her bed, pulled the blankets up tightly over her, still shaking with a feverish type of cold, and curled up tight, not even bothering to remove her sandals. Moments later Blossom was asleep, and a small contented smile quickly swept over her face as heat started to spread through her now that she was back in her nice, warm bed.

Her right foot inched over the mattress to find its mate, and, fast asleep, her big toe ran delicately up and down her left arch, causing the toes of her left foot to once again curl around the fastening of the sandal, as a single small giggle slipped from her upturned lips.

"Hee hee...stoppit, that tickles...hee hee..." she giggled sleepily and squirmed around in her bed, as she was clearly dreaming that someone was tickling her very gently.

And so, all three Powerpuff Girls slept soundly for the rest of the night. However...

* * *

Outside the window, someone was watching as Blossom dreamt on, and a wicked smile creased their lips.

"So...the Powerpuff Girls are ticklish, eh?" a female voice whispered. "At last, I may have found my way to overthrow that annoying twit Him and reclaim what is rightfully mine..."

The source of the voice vanished in a puff of pale blue smoke.

* * *

Somewhere far away, in a cave deep inside a volcano, the being re-materialised.

"Mother - you're back!" said a girl, running out from a nearby room.

"Where were you?" asked a second girl, walking out behind her after switching off a television. A third girl followed the first two, staring fixedly at a well-thumbed copy of FHM. Her sandals were too large on her feet, and one came off, tripping her up. After putting it back on and buckling both more tightly, she too looked up at their mother.

"Didja bring my magazine subscriptions?" she asked, a twinkle in her eyes. Her mother laughed and produced a small stack of magazines, all the covers showing images of scantily clad young women. The girl gave a whoop of joy and flew off to her room.

"Typical Brite", said the first girl who had coming running out, "she's obsessed with those mags."

"Now Burst", said the mother, "don't make fun of your sister." The second girl agreed.

"Aw, shuddup Blast", said Brite, and gave her sister a brief rib-tickle to rid her of her mock-scolding look. Both girls fell to the floor giggling, as Blast began squeezing Brite's waist in retaliation.

"Now girls", said the mother, "I located Him's Earthly palace."

"Really - cool!" said Burst. "So are we gonna attack him? Then we could go back home." Her sister nodded her head in agreement.

"No - the town is protected by three super-heroines called The Powerpuff Girls" said the mother. "They won't allow violence in their city but dealing with them will be even easier than Him."

"But how?"

"That, my dears, is quite simple..." and she began to outline a needlessly complex plan. Both girls' faces lit up with delight as scheme was unveiled.

* * *

To be continued...

* * *

Well, I figured it was time to give this story a serious direction; don't worry, Neo-Larry, this won't be like "Caught in the Crossfire". :D


	13. The Morning After

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue

**Hairy Gregory Studios**

in association with

**Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions**

is proud to present

**The Powerpuff Girls**

in

**Laughter in Townsville:**

**Tickled Pink, Green and Blue**

**Chapter 7: The morning after**

* * *

The following morning, Professor Utonium was greeted by the sight of three happy, though still half-asleep, Powerpuff girls. 

"Morning, girls", he greeted them cheerfully.

"Morning, Dad", they all murmured sleepily back at him. Blossom rubbed her eyes and gave a big yawn. Bubbles, seeing Blossom yawning, had to stifle a sympathetic yawn of her own. Now, I know that describing the characters' clothing is considered bad, but I'll do it here anyway just to get it out of the way.

Bubbles wore a white short-sleeved t-shirt with a picture of a bunny on it coupled with a loose (i.e. not pencil-thin) sky-blue ankle-length skirt, white ankle socks and a pair of flip-flop sandals. Blossom wore a pink short-sleeved t-shirt under a pink knee-length dress, and had a pair of thong sandals on her feet. Finally, Buttercup was wearing a forest-green t-shirt with a pair of brown shorts, and had buckled sandals on her feet. Bubbles and Blossom had also painted their fingernails and toenails in their respective colours of sky blue and pink. All three girls sat down at the table, and the Professor began serving pancakes dripping in maple syrup for breakfast. They all perked up at once, and began eating, not at super speed, but it was quite clear that they were all really enjoying themselves.

Blossom could hear a slapping sound coming from nearby, and tracked it to directly beneath the table. Trying not to look to obvious, she looked at the table as she continued to eat, and using her x-ray vision saw Bubbles had her legs crossed and was dangling one of her sandals, causing it to slap rhythmically against the sole of her foot. Blossom snapped herself back to reality from her daydreaming and continued to eat as before.

Very soon, all the pancakes were gone, and Professor Utonium was glad that he had served himself breakfast first, or else he wouldn't have gotten any.

"Well, goodbye girls, have a great day at school", he said, giving each girl a quick hug.

"We will dad", said Blossom, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah, don't worry daddy, we'll have lots of fun as always", said Bubbles, and gave him a kiss too.

"Ymmmph, wod deymm saippphd", Buttercup added through her final giant mouthful of pancakes.

"Say it, don't spray it Buttercup", Professor Utonium said, dryly.

"I didn't spray anything", said Buttercup after she had swallowed, "'cos I practice talking like that in the mirror." She stuck her tongue out as the Professor ruffled her hair, but it actually made it look neater.

Buttercup and Bubbles went out to wait on the lawn, while Blossom took a long pink ribbon from the coat-stand and used it to tie her hair back. Her hair still reached down to her ankles, but was mostly kept tidy; the ribbon also reached about halfway down her back. She then followed her sisters out to wait for the school bus, and for their next-door neighbour and best friend, Robyn. She got there to find that Robyn was just coming out of her own home.

"Hey Robyn!"

"Oh, hi Blossom. Hi Buttercup. Hiya Bubbly!"

"Hey Robyn", Buttercup replied.

"Hi Bobbi", Bubbles also said, blushing slightly as she did. In the bright sunshine, this thankfully went unnoticed though.

"So, what did you three get up to yesterday evening?" Robyn asked. She herself had been taken to one of her parent's parties, as the girls knew, and so had been unable to hang out with them all evening. All three girls blushed now, and desperately sought to change the subject. They didn't need to though, as a distraction presented itself at that moment. A woman came straight up to them.

"You're the Powerpuff Girls, aren't you?" she asked, eagerly.

"Yes, we are", Blossom was the first to reply. "How can I help you, ma'am?"

"Well, you", the woman turned to Bubbles, "Bubbles, isn't it?" Bubbles nodded meekly and seemed to shrink back under the woman's stare. "Forgive me Bubbles, but have you ever thought about going into modelling?"

"Really?" Bubbles asked, her voice very small, as she was feeling very shy at the moment.

"Yes, really. You are absolutely adorable". This was clearly going to be a day filled with blushing for Bubbles. "Look, I won't keep you, I have a photo shoot to get done. But, if you ever think you'd like to be a model, here's my card. I do a lot of work for catalogues and teen magazines. Just think about it, okay?"

Bubbles nodded again. "Thank you miss", she said, and the woman blew them a kiss and strode off towards the nearest bus stop. All four girls turned their attention to the business card.

"Miss Honey", Blossom read out. "What a pretty name." At that point, the school bus arrived, and all four girls filed on and took the first group of seats available to continue their conversation. Blossom and Buttercup sat next to each other, and behind them, Bubbles sat next to Robyn. Bubbles swung her legs as they chatted idly, and her sandals started to slip against the smooth fabric of her socks. On one particular upswing, the bus bumped over a small dent in the road, causing Bubbles' right sandal to go flying off her foot and land with a slap on the floor.

"Oops, lost my sandal", she muttered, and hopped off the seat to bend down and search for it in the shadows. The other three kept talking, with Blossom and Buttercup sitting facing the wrong way, leaning over the back of the seat to see their pal.

Bubbles easily found her sandal, it hadn't really gone far anyway, but suddenly had another idea. Looking up from where she was kneeling under her seat, she saw Robyn's own sandaled feet hanging right in front of her. She tried to resist - _this isn't the Robyn in your fantasies Bubbles, this is the real Robyn!_ - she reminded herself, but she could feel her willpower crumbling.

Robyn's sandals were of the variety that has one strap high up around the front of the ankle, and a small strap over the big toe, like a flip-flop but less likely to fall off by accident. Bubbles reached out slowly and stroked a single fingernail down Robyn's bare arch. Consciously, Robyn didn't even register the sensation as she was busy talking to Blossom and Buttercup, but her toes curled slightly and her other foot came over to scratch the itch. A second stroke of the arch was noticed however, and Robyn gasped, clamping her mouth shut.

"What? What is it, Robyn?" Buttercup asked, watching as Robyn's eyes began to water from holding back the giggles. Bubbles wisely decided not to push the matter, nor tempt herself further, and sat back on the seat, slipping her own flip-flop securely back on her foot.

Robyn pouted at her. "What was that for, Bubbly?" she asked, and looked downward to indicate what "that" she was referring to.

Bubbles smiled back sheepishly. "Sorry Bobbi, I just couldn't resist."

"Oh really?" said Robyn in a singsong voice, getting a certain glint in her eye. Bubbles tried to burrow deeper into her chair, but didn't move otherwise. Robyn began to poke and prod Bubbles in the stomach, causing her to curl up in her seat and giggle helplessly.

"Tee hee hee hee...stoppit Bobbi...hahahahahaha", she said between bursts of giggles. But despite her occasional pleas, she didn't actually try to escape from Robyn's clutches, and just sat there laughing for the next several minutes as first Robyn, then being joined by Blossom and Buttercup, tickled Bubbles all over on the ride to school. Bubbles even uncurled herself slightly as she became a little used to the feelings. It was softer than usual, more playful, and she enjoyed that; and it obviously showed, as they didn't stop tickling her all the way until the bus drew up at the school gates.

"Hahaha...heeheeheehee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee..._squeal!_...hee hee hee...that tihihihihihihickles...pleheheheeheeheease stoohohohohohohohohohohahahahaaha..."

At long last though, the bus arrived at school, and all the children entered school for another long, long day of lessons.

"You liked that, didn't you Bubbly?" Robyn asked, casting a sideways glance at her friend as they exited the bus.

"Yeah!" Bubbles answered, enthusiastically. "I love to laugh, it's my favourite-est thing in the whole world." She had to take care while they walked, as her feet kept sliding out of her sandals with each step, and her toes were twitching in hopeful anticipation of more tickling to come.

* * *

"OK, class, good morning", the teacher said, as the students - Robyn, Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup all included - came into the classroom and sat down, the four girls in question taking the whole of the front row of seats, with Bubbles on the far left, Robyn next to her, Blossom next to her, and Buttercup on the far right nearest the door. 

Buttercup rested her head in her hands and stared longingly at the door, though she was still listening to what was being said. Bubbles crossed her legs under her chair, and tried to dangle her flip-flop again, unsuccessfully; it slid easily to the floor. She let the other sandal slide off as well, and curled her toes against the linoleum floor.

"Well, it's time for your first lesson today, which is of course biology. Now, we've finished studying the skeleton for this year, so we'll move straight on to take a look at the muscles, working our way up from the bottom..."

"Ha ha, you said bottom!"

"Quiet Mitch!" Mitch at once fell silent. "As I was saying, we'll look at the muscles and how they help us to move, starting from the feet. However, today I think we'll do some practical work on this, so put your textbooks away. Also, can I have a volunteer to come up here and be a live display for us?" Blossom's hand shot up without a moment's pause, and she got out of her seat and stood, waiting for instructions. "Lie on my desk, please Blossom, hands by your sides and on your back." Blossom did as instructed.

The teacher then removed Blossom's sandals, which gave the girl some pause for thought. Clearly the teacher sensed her apprehension. "Don't worry, I won't do anything to you, not that I could anyway. But as we're studying the feet, having them bare makes it much easier, right?" Blossom nodded, and forced her heart to slow down.

Gathering the class at the "foot" of the desk, the teacher took a pen and began pointing out each individual group of muscles. Every time she did, Blossom's toes wriggled, and she had to choke back a giggle or two. The teacher's rambling continued all lesson, and pretty soon Blossom's tiny feet were covering in inky doodles and she was shaking with barely-restrained laughter.

"...And finally we move to the little toe", said the teacher, trapping the pen tip right at the base of the toe and wiggling the point ever so lightly against the skin, causing Blossom to laugh out loud for some moments. "You all right there, Blossom?"

"Y-y-y-y-y-y-yes Mihihihihissss..." Blossom spluttered, "just a little ticklish", and she bit her lip to try to hold it together for the few minutes that were left of the lesson. Her toes curled tightly around the end of the pen.

"Uh unhh, Blossom, no toe-curling please, I haven't finished my discussion yet. Bubbles, could you tickle her arch lightly? Robyn, Buttercup hold her down."

When the girls did as instructed, Blossom tittered a little, but her whole body jerked quite forcefully under the teasing from Bubbles. Her toes fanned wide again, and the teacher continued her lecture on the foot's muscle groups.

Minutes later, when the bell rang, everyone hurriedly grabbed their books and rushed off to English lesson, all except for Bubbles, Buttercup and Robyn, who waited while Blossom retrieved her sandals.

"What about all the scribbles on your feet, Bloss?" Buttercup mischievously asked her. Blossom harrumphed.

"I'll wash them off later", she said, with an implied "when you're not around". They followed the rest of the class out into the corridors and towards English. Blossom and Buttercup flew ahead, while Bubbles walked along with Robyn, talking aimlessly about how interesting the lesson had been and such like.

Upon arrival at the next class however, they found the whole class standing outside the room, and the English teacher shouting, "Come on everyone! It's such a lovely day that I thought we could have class outside today" All the kids cheered his notion whole-heartedly.

Five minutes later, having reconvened under the shade of a large tree in the school grounds, the teacher rested back against the tree and waited for the class to settle themselves on the grass in a semi-circle around him. They picked up from where they had left off, which was in the middle of doing a reading of a play.

Needless to say, in the balmy weather and out in the open air in such pretty surroundings, most of the students who were not reading parts out loud quickly became distracted, and turned their minds to other tasks instead.

"Hey Blossom?"

"Yeah Robyn?"

"You remember you said you'd like to join me next time I went babysitting?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, my parents have set me up to babysit my cousin's little children tonight - you still wanna come?"

"How old are they?"

"Jenna's eight, and Adam is five."

"Cool. Your parents are driving us there?"

Robyn nodded. "And back. We're only getting ten bucks each, but it should be fun."

"Yeah."

Meanwhile, Buttercup had become completely disinterested in everything around her, and was now taking to looking for way to similarly distract others from the lesson. Picking a small tuft of grass, she started wafting it over the back of the neck of the girl in front of her, who happened to be Betty (a.k.a. Hamster Girl).

Betty was fully engrossed in the reading of the play, and so at first merely frowned at the intrusion upon her concentration. Moments later, as the grass blades trailed up the side of her neck and slithered behind her right ear, the frown began to fall away from her face and she scrunched her head down into her shoulders to try to rid herself of the irritation. Her head shook uselessly from side to side, and a small titter fell from her lips as she caved to the feelings.

Buttercup would have continued this slow insidious pestering of poor Betty, had Blossom not chosen that very moment to lean forward from her own seat on the grass right behind Buttercup, and grab Buttercup around the waist, letting her hands rest lightly on the toughest fighter's waist. Buttercup gave a small, unnoticed yelp of surprise, and pulled her arms down, clamping Blossom's elbows in place.

"Stop annoying Betty, BC", Blossom whispered in Buttercup's ear, causing Buttercup to shiver a little despite the heat.

"Or what?"

"Or the rest of the class will see how tough you really are." Buttercup swallowed nervously, and sat still for the rest of the time. For the next few minutes after that point though, Blossom kept her hands on Buttercup's tummy, twitching her fingers every twenty seconds or so just to see Buttercup wriggle about surreptitiously, determined not to give in. She wasn't really tickling enough for Buttercup to react, just enough to act as a sufficient threat. Buttercup occasionally let out a small groan or grunt when this happened, and whispered "Quit it", or "I've learnt my lesson", once in a while too.

Blossom soon grew bored of keeping Buttercup on her toes - figuratively speaking, of course - and went back to examining her own toes. She quietly slipped off her sandals and examined the doodles that had been drawn all over both feet over the course of the Science lesson, tracing the patterns with one fingernail and imagining that it was someone else's fingers tickling her faintly. She picked up a leaf and closed her eyes halfway, thinking _it's not you, it's someone else_, and stroked the leaf down her sole, across her toes, around in figure eights. Apart from the occasional muscle spasm from keeping her feet still, all it did was give her a slight itch, which she scratched, disappointed.

Bubbles and Robyn were at the outer edge of the semi-circle, and were both reclining, resting themselves on their elbows, letting the recitals from the other class members just wash over them, as neither of them had a speaking part in this play until the very last scene - all parts had been allotted at the very beginning. Bubbles toed off both her flip-flops, and wiggled her toes lazily. Bubbles then slowly inched her right foot over towards Robyn's left leg slowly, so that if Robyn mentioned it she could pass it off as an accident. Taking the final bold move, she nudged Robyn's foot with her own.

"Huh?" Robyn said, startled out of her reverie. "What?" she asked Bubbles, turning to face her friend.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise I was touching your foot", Bubbles said, apologetically, and moved her foot away again. Robyn blushed a little.

"Actually Bubbles, that felt kinda nice, in a weird sorta way."

"Really?"

"Well, I guess." Robyn kicked her sandals off too, and Bubbles took this as an invitation to play footsie a little more. She decided she'd have to be careful though, and to make sure she didn't push things too far. So, keeping it playful, she rubbed her socked foot against Robyn's bare sole, tickling it faintly.

"Heh heh...that's tickly..." Robyn whispered to her, but didn't pull away. "It feels nice, and...soothing. Those sandals are new, and the straps were digging in." Bubbles kept up the slow and gentle caressing, and Robyn lay there, sighing a little and her toes fidgeting every now and then when the tickles built up just too much. Bubbles tried to lessen the tickling as much as possible.

Robyn lay back all the way on the grass, staring up at the sky and enjoying her friend's calming massage. She could just drift off to sleep right now, on this beautiful warm day...she was jerked back to full wakefulness when Bubbles wickedly flicked her toenails against Robyn's foot, and the tickling amplified enough that Robyn pulled her legs in sharply and rubbed her feet to relieve the tickling.

"No napping", Bubbles said in a playfully scolding voice, and Robyn stuck her tongue out and stretched her legs again. This time, she tickled Bubbles' feet with her toes, and Bubbles collapsed against Robyn's shoulder, chest heaving with silent laughter. Not one to back down, she fluttered her fingers over Robyn's ribcage, and Robyn stuck her hands in Bubbles' underarms, trying to force her to withdraw. Both girls were soon lying on the ground, exhausted from forcefully tickling the other and from NOT laughing, and just lay there catching their breath.

Becoming conscious of the fact that the teacher might wonder what they were doing, the two girls sat up and crossed their legs under them, sitting up as straight as they could to look more attentive than they actually felt on this fine day. Bubbles' feet were hidden somewhere beneath her long dress, but she leant to the side so that her left foot, crossed under her, poked out from under her dress and touched against Robyn's right foot. The two pressed their opposite feet together, and so began a little tug - well, push, really - of war.

Bubbles was clearly going to win, right from the outset, by her sheer strength. Letting her foot slip against Bubbles', Robyn wiggled her toes again and tickled the sole of Bubbles' foot, causing the puff to bite her lip and squirm where she sat. Her leg weakened, and Robyn began to push back against her, keeping up the light tickling, and whispering "Coochie coo" in Bubbles' ear every once in a while.

"Stoppit", Bubbles whispered, giggling softly.

"Coochie coochie coo, Bubbly", Robyn whispered, "I'm not stopping until you give in."

"N-n-n-n-n-never."

"Oh goody" Robyn whispered, and rubbed her foot against Bubbles, bringing a shiver from the girl followed by her leg being pushed so far sideways that she feel over to her left, pulling Robyn down on top of her. That finally brought the teacher's attention their way, but the class was practically over anyway, and their was so much commotion from the other students that he couldn't be bothered any longer, so dismissed the class five minutes early.

As it was morning break after second period, most of the students just spread out under the tree's shade a bit more or wandered off through the grounds; Blossom was the exception, heading back into the hot school building, heading for the toilets so that she could wash the squiggly pen marks off her feet. Buttercup thought about following her, but decided to be nice.

Blossom headed for the girls' toilets, only to find a sign on them saying "out of order". Undeterred, she went in the direction of the other set of girls' toilets on the other side of the school. This set of toilets was frequented by all the more delinquent elements of the school's role call, who would spend their breaks (and oftentimes some of their lessons too) smoking, drinking, mouthing off, and inventing new fashion trends. Oh yes, and picking on the smaller kids.

Blossom hovered in to the bathroom to find only three of the school's very worst offenders in attendance today. They all knew who she and her sisters were though, and didn't dare to do anything towards her. Blossom went to the nearest working sink that wasn't filled with the gunky results of failed makeup experiments, pulled her sandals off, and began scrubbing her feet with wet tissues. While she was doing this, she didn't notice the three girls discussing something behind her back. She quickly finished, and was about to put her sandals back on when one of the girls spoke up to her.

"Hey Blossom, could ya do me a favour? I dropped a lipstick behind that toilet", she said, pointing into one of the vacant cubicles, "and I can't reach it."

"How could I help?" Blossom asked, curious.

"Well, you're smaller, so I thought maybe you could reach into the gap better." Blossom agreed to assist them, and went into the cubicle, closely followed by the three girls.

"I can't see anything here", Blossom said, peering into the shadows behind the toilet bowl, "perhaps if I can reach round just a little further..." She was about to do just that when two of the girls grabbed her by the waist and sat her down on the toilet.

"What do you think you're doing?" Blossom asked, indignantly. One of the girls knelt down in front of Blossom, and began spidering her fingers behind Blossom's knees.

"We figure you're ticklish, **Bloss ,** so you're gonna laugh for us for the rest of break", said the girl.

"Yeah"

"And you're gonna come back here at lunchtime too, for an extra half-hour", said the third, grinning evilly.

And so Blossom's day went from bad, to much, much worse.

* * *

Sorry for the heavily delayed update post; I thought I'd already put this chapter up here...clearly not though. Next chapter is just being ironed out before I start typing (tomorrow morning). Until then, be good, and if you can't be good, be happy:D 


	14. The Plot Thickens

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

Hairy Gregory Studios

in association with

Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions

is proud to present

The Powerpuff Girls

in

Laughter in Townsville:

Tickled Pink, Green and Blue

Chapter 8: The plot thickens

* * *

"So, what happened next?" Robyn asked, eagerly, as she and Blossom were heading straight from school to the babysitting job. Blossom just gave her a sly look.

"Whaddya think happened? They may be the 'bad girls' of the school, but I'm a powerpuff; so, I dunked their heads down the toilets!"

"Haha, that serves them right", Robyn gasped between peals of laughter. Then, becoming serious again, she asked, "Blossom, has Bubbles been acting odd lately?"

"Odd - how do you mean?"

"Well, she's been kinda shy, which just isn't like her."

"Shy?" Blossom stopped and thought for a moment about this comment. "Well, now that you mention it, I have noticed that, but only when she's around you."

Robyn had a fairly unreadable look on her face now, as she pondered this. The two continued towards the house.

A few minutes later, the pair were taking a shortcut across Townsville's very own volcano park, which was pretty much deserted at this time of the evening, when they came across a girl about the same age and height as themselves. Her hair was deep purple, with white at the tips, and she was wearing denim dungarees - Blossom was thinking how horribly the blue denim clashed with her purple hair - and a pair of sports sandals that looked at least a size too big for her.

"Hi," said the girl, "are you Blossom, of the Powerpuff Girls?"

Blossom's eyes lit up at the recognition, although a million questions burned in her mind about who this girl was, and why she looked vaguely familiar. Finally though, she decided it was simply because the girl also had a "puffed" appearance.

"I'm Brite", the girl said, holding out her hand to Blossom, who took it. "I'm a Powerpuff too - I've wanted to meet you for ages, but I couldn't find Townsville."

"Yeah, not many can", said Robyn, "they don't put it on maps anymore 'cos we get too many monster attacks. Think it'll make it safer if no-one can find the place."

"Sounds like a really cool city - are you two busy, or do ya think you could show me around a bit first?"

"Oh, sorry," said Blossom, remembering the babysitting, "we've gotta babysitting job tonight that we can't be late for," Brite looked disappointed, "but we could talk for a bit."

"Great!" said Brite, happily leading the other two towards a nearby bench.

"So, where do you live?" Blossom asked. The conversation continued, with Brite not answering too many of the girls' questions, but asking many of her own, which they always endeavoured to answer.

Without them even realising it, ten minutes had soon passed, and Robyn glanced at her watch before exclaiming, "Oh my god Blossom - look at the time", then turning to Brite, who sat between them, and said, "sorry Brite, but we have to go now, or we really will be late", and she and Blossom started to rise from there seat, as Brite just pouted.

"Oh, surely you could be a few minutes late?" she asked, giving them a pleading look, and both girls suddenly stopped in their tracks as though they had run out of energy, and slumped back down on the bench next to Brite again. "That's better", she said, and placed one arm around Robyn's waist, and the other around Blossom's waist, and began stroking the spot right above their hips very softly with one fingernail in little circles.

Both girls shifted uncomfortably, and tried once more to stand up; Brite hummed a tune quietly to herself, and their legs gave out under them without a seconds' warning.

"What...what's going on...?" Blossom asked, breathlessly. Brite just smirked at her.

"Having a little trouble getting up, are you Blossom?"

"Yeah, I..." Blossom trailed off in mid-sentence, as Brite started tickling each girl now with two fingernails, just as lightly as before. Blossom stared straight ahead, determined not to give in, while Robyn screwed her eyes shut tight and grit her teeth against the teasing.

Brite decided to add some verbal teasing to go along with the light tickling. "Aww, whassamatter, are the poor babies ticklish?" she said, as she brought a third finger into play on each hand; now Blossom screwed her eyes tight shut and bit her lip in concentration, and Robyn began bouncing up and down on the bench, her face turning a bright shade of pink from trying to hold her breath. Brite, of course, knew exactly what her little bit of fun was doing to the girls, but it was too entertaining for her to stop. Using a fourth finger to tease their tummies, Brite ran her big toe up and down the arch of Robyn's sandalled foot, making her foot shake quite fiercely. The little distraction was the final straw, and all the breath that Robyn had been holding came bursting out of her as she started squealing and laughing uncontrollably.

Blossom was proving slightly more difficult a case for Brite to crack - however, Robyn's laughter soon wore down Blossom's mental defences, and the two girls laughed and squirmed about uselessly, unable to stand up or even to pull away from this Powerpuff that was tickling them incessantly.

A lazy grin grew on Brite's face as she continued to tickle the puff and her friend, as they tried hopelessly to fend her off from tickling their stomachs and sides. Brite reached her arms around a bit further and scratched softly at the base of Robyn's belly button with a single finger, causing the girl to twitch frantically and her laughter to increase from loud giggles to full-on uproarious belly laughs. Meanwhile, she slipped her hand around Blossom's waist up to the armhole of her t-shirt, before running it back down now inside Blossom's t-shirt, scampering her fingers quickly over Blossom's bare ribcage. Blossom tried to move away from the tickling hand and in doing so ended up falling against Brite's side, and Brite just tickled with more force, making Blossom laugh and wriggle harder.

Her right hand slipped up under Robyn's loose t-shirt, and also began scratching softly and rapidly just above her tummy. The girl couldn't stop laughing long enough to pull away or to say anything in the way of pleading with their merciless captor. Brite's hand wandered up Robyn's side underneath her top, hitching it up as she went, and worked it's way up until it reached her underarm, where she spidered her fingers and scrabbled about, raising much mirth from the defenceless heap of jelly that had once been Robyn Snyder.

The two girls were laughing and wiggling about so much that, accidentally, they were gradually losing their sandals, as they shook with continuous laughter. Blossom gave a violent shudder when Brite's hand brushed against the side of her breast, and involuntarily kicked Brite in the shin.

"Ow! Goddammit - that hurt!" Brite exclaimed, releasing both her captives and bending over to rub her sore leg.

Still giggling like a little girl having been tickled by her favourite uncle, Blossom managed to croak out, "Now...hehe...Robyn!" and they made a mad dash for it across the park.

Several seconds later, Brite looked up to see Robyn and Blossom sprinting away at top speed, and smirked to herself. "They won't get far", she muttered, and flew after them.

"Why...don't you...just fly...us outta here?" Robyn panted as they continued to run away from the evil puff.

"My powers...aren't working proper...ly", Blossom puffed in reply. "The tickling..." she said, in way of explanation, and Robyn's eyes went wide at the revelation. The two continued their escape.

Brite grew bored, and concentrated on Blossom's feet as she flew up close behind them. At once, Blossom's right leg crossed in front of her left, and she fell flat face-first on the grass, followed moments later by Robyn in the exact same manner. Brite knelt down by their feet, and began to slowly slip their sandals off, grinning evilly at them the whole time.

"Y'know what? I think your little footsies have been neglected", Brite said to them, "I think very much that that situation should be remedied. And I've got just the thing..."

Robyn tried to clamp her toes around her sandal's straps, but Brite just snapped the sandals clean off the straps when she pulled at them, causing Robyn a lot of pain in the process as said straps dug against her feet. Brite then picked up her bare feet and began to rub them gently, and Robyn whimpered in slight pleasure at the soft relaxing touches.

"There, there", said Brite, "I'm not all evil...oh no wait, I am!" she added, and was just about to start with the tickle-torture again, when...

"Brite!"

Brite just ignored the girls' voice, and poised herself, ready to inflict.

"HEY BRITE, YA BIG LEZBO!"

"WHAT IS IT, SHRIMP!" Brite asked the girl, without bothering to look around at her.

"Mum has something she needs to tell you", said the other girl, who Blossom and Robyn could see wore a dark orange t-shirt and a pair of well-worn denim jeans as well as a pair of shoes with only a strap holding around the back of the ankle.

"Can't ya see I'm in the middle of something here?"

"Yeah well, take it up with mum, not me; you can flirt with the mortals later." Blossom's eyes bugged out at this statement.

"I'm not a mortal", she said as clearly as she could, "I'm a Powerpuff Girl."

"Really?" The girl asked. "Well, I'm Burst, and you're even more pathetic than I imagine, if my freak of a big sis can tickle you helpless like that." So saying, Burst blinked out of existence in the park, and reappeared at home. Brite was still caught off guard and Blossom, having caught her breath by now, picked up Robyn and flew at supersonic speeds back home, where she made a quick phone call to Robyn's aunt and uncle to explain the situation.

* * *

At the volcano-home, Brite popped in, right behind to Burst, and wrapped her arms around her little sister in a bear hug.

"Hey sis, thanks for the heads up. Now, maybe there's something I can do for you, like say, cheer ya up?" and at that moment, she began digging her fingers into Burst waist, causing Burst to be true to her name and burst into unbridled laughter. Burst wasn't exactly the hyper-ticklish type, but Brite knew what she was doing, so it really didn't matter.

This could take some time, so let's go look elsewhere...

* * *

At the Townsville home of the demon known only to mere mortals as Him, Him was currently sitting in his bath, holding his closest and only friend Mr. Quackers, after having watched all the events so far in his transdimensional TV (TTV).

"So, they're going to try to overthrow me are they, Mr. Quackers? Well, we'll see about that. If that second-rate demoness is going to trrrrrrrrrrry to use her daughters to destroy me, I suppose I should, as they say, fight fire with fire..."

Waving a claw at the empty space in his bathroom, the air began to solidify and darken, taken on humanoid form. Finally, the form coalesced to become a girl of the same age as the Powerpuffs and the Blackpuffs (Burst, Blast, and Brite), dressed all in gold. Her hair was a bright golden yellow colour, her eyes were a golden yellow, and she seemed to almost glow with an angelic light. When she smiled, though, she was anything BUT angelic.

"Hi Dad, my name's Sunni. What d'ya want me to do?" she said, giving an evil grin. A darkness glinted in her eyes that hinted at massive power...


	15. A Sunni delight, and an unwelcome Blast

Laughter in Townsville: Tickled Pink, Green, and Blue 

**Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions**

is proud to present

**The Powerpuff Girls**

in

**Laughter in Townsville:**

**Tickled Pink, Green and Blue**

**Chapter 9: A Sunni delight, and an unwelcome Blast**

* * *

Bubbles and Buttercup were playing a video game at home, and Buttercup, being the more experienced at playing computer games, was easily whooping her little sister's butt in the racing game. She'd taken an early lead and just kept swerving all over the track, blocking any attempts to overtake her.

"Hey - no fair!"

"Who said anything about being fair?" Buttercup said, teasingly. Bubbles just pouted. Then, she got a mischievous plan and, dropping her controller to the floor, she reached across the couch and tickled her sister's tummy.

Buttercup was so busy showing off her "mad skillz" that she didn't actually notice at first; that didn't last long though, and she soon dropped her game controller as she tried feebly to push Bubbles' hands away from her ticklish belly.

"H--h-h-h-h-h-h-hahahahahey! Wahahahahahaha..." Buttercup blurted out as she writhed in ticklish agony. Her computer car was travelling awfully close to a sheer cliff-face. She made a grab for the controller and managed, somehow, to pick it up through her jerky body movements, but wasn't able to shake Bubbles off from her tickling rampage.

"Ha! Let's see you make it to the finish line now!" Bubbles said, and continued to scrabble all over Buttercup's belly and up and down her sides, causing her to twist from side to side as she fought to keep the CG car on the road, swerving erratically, but now not to show off in front of Bubbles. _Just a little further..._ The finish line was in sight...

Bubbles went for Buttercup's sandalled foot, but rather than fiddling with the buckles, she just tickled under the toes, making them scrunch and flex with a life of their own. Buttercup yanked her foot away, so Bubbles just moved on to the other foot, holding on to the ankle to stop her escaping again.

"Hee hee hee...I got you now, Butterbutt" Bubbles teased Buttercup, using her annoying pet name for her sister, which Buttercup just laughed at under the circumstances.

At that moment, the front door slammed shut, and soon Blossom burst into the girls' games room to find Bubbles sprawled across Buttercup waist, holding a sandalled foot. At the sight of the scene, she just ran straight for her bedroom, bursting into tears.

"What was THAT about?" Buttercup muttered, rhetorically.

"I dunno." Bubbles said, simply.

Buttercup sighed. "Think we should go talk to her?"

Bubbles shrugged. "Prol'ly should"

So, after extricating themselves from the tangle of wires, they went across to Blossom's bedroom, to find Blossom and Robyn both lying stretched out on the bed, panting heavily for breath and red in the face as though they had run a marathon.

"What happened to you two?" Buttercup was the first to ask the important question.

"We had a run-in..." Blossom started, still panting. "...a puff...evil...attacked us."

"We barely got away", Robyn added, nodding her head absent-mindedly. "What did the puff do to you?" Bubbles asked, amazed.

"She...um..." Blossom began, and then trailed off. She didn't really want to tell her sisters that they had been incapacitated by tickling to such a degree; she's surely never live that down if she did. But what could she say?

"She tortured us."

"And she tripped us up when we ran away", Robyn added, thinking of something else.

"So?" Bubbles and Buttercup said.

"So she was several f...yards away" said Blossom, avoiding the word "feet" for tickling-related reasons. Coincidentally...

"Robyn, where are you're sandals?" Bubbles asked. Robyn was glad she was red in the face; it hid her blush.

"They...got completely ruined...in the fight, so I chucked them", she said, which was partially true. "Oh"

A knock came on the door, and the Professor poked his head inside the room cautiously.

"Girls?"

"Yes, Professor?" All four answered at once.

"Dinner's ready. Robyn, would you like to stay for dinner?" Robyn's face lit up at the invitation.

"I'd love to Professor Utonium." "That's great. Well, come on down then", he said, and left the room, whistling a jaunty little tune. The girls followed down a few moments later, after Blossom and Robyn had caught their breath fully.

* * *

Dinnertime was more uncomfortable than usual; Blossom and Robyn were reluctant to talk about their attack in detail, though they did give a description of Brite and Burst, along with Brite's powers of telekinesis which had tripped them up. Bubbles was quiet and for the most part just spent the time picking at her food, sneaking shy glances at Robyn when she thought no-one was looking; several times, though, Blossom caught her at it and smirked to herself, having twigged as to the cause of Bubbles' odd behaviour. Buttercup just stuffed her face, as per. The Professor shot Buttercup reproachful looks occasionally, which were wholly ineffective.

After the dinner had finished, followed by ice cream for desert, Robyn bid the Utoniums goodnight and went next door, confused by Bubbles seemingly ignoring her all evening. The three puffs reconvened in the lounge once the Professor had gone back to his lab, to discuss their next move.

"I say we pound 'em!" Buttercup said, smacking one fist into the other.

"That would get us nowhere, Buttercup", Blossom said calmly. "They're far superior in strength, and Brite can control movement with her mind; if you tried to attack her, she could stop you without laying a finger on you."

Bubbles thought for a moment.

"What about her sisters? Maybe they don't have that power?"

Blossom ruffled Bubbles' hair playfully. "Good thinking Bubbles, but we can't be sure - though it's a safe bet; we all have unique powers - well, WE do", Blossom said, amending her statement at Buttercup's scowl.

"What about trying to find out what they're up to?" Bubbles then asked.

"How, Bubs?" Buttercup asked, sharper than she'd intended it to sound.

"We-ell...get one on their own, and try to force them to spill their plans."

"Again, I say 'how?'. Especially as Bloss says they're stronger and faster than us."

Blossom sat stunned that Buttercup had been listening. Then, an idea sparked.

"By Jove - I think Bubbles has it!" she said, a massive smile threatening to split her face in twain. She took off and dragged her sisters behind her out of the window, after leaving a note for the Professor - "Fighting crime; back soon".

* * *

"Burst should be here with me," Blast muttered, "where could she've gotten?" An image came to mind of Burst caught in Brite's tickle-torture yet again.

"Oh, I'm sorry Burst, but mom would kill me if I abandoned my post now. I'll make it up to you later though, I promise." She hugged her waist against the cold - compared to Hell, Townsville in mid-summer is still cold - and floated down to examine a nearby video store. A new superhero blockbuster film was being advertised in the window display, and Blast just drooled at the image of the chief villain.

Nearby, someone chuckled evilly, and a huge orb of sunlight burst out of nowhere, vaporising everything it touched, and leaving a near perfect hemispherical bowl-shape in the middle of the main road. Several cars had their brakes tested to the limits as they swerved wildly to avoid falling into the big hole, which was 40 feet across and 20 feet deep.

Seconds later, the Powerpuff Girls appeared to find two puffs staring at the still smoking hole in the ground; one in shock, and the other in insane glee. The first looked liked Brite, with purple hair, except this girl had black hair tips; she was wearing a plain purple t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and had a pair of open-toed, backless mules on her feet. The veins in her forehead stood out black under her skin.

The second looked nothing like her, dressed in a gold coloured singlet and a golden knee-length skirt, and her feet were in a pair of gold coloured slippers of the type that ballet dancers wear. Her hair was a shining golden, as were her eyes, and the air around her seemed to glow with a faint golden tint to it, like a halo of sorts.

Blossom and Buttercup didn't know what to make of the scene they were witnessing; Bubbles and the purple girl, meanwhile, seemed to be having trouble drawing their gaze away from the golden angel-girl.

Sunni just took all this in, noting the hold she appeared to exert over Bubbles and Blast, and wondered why that was, when Buttercup and Blossom seemed unaffected.

Blossom finally drew herself up, and rounded on the purple girl.

"You - you did this?" she said in a way that didn't sound like a question, indicating the void in the middle of the highway.

With difficulty, Blast came to her senses and turned to face Blossom.

"No I didn't; I was just looking at the videos. SHE did it!" she said, pointing at the golden girl. All present had trouble believing this, as the girl just looked too...pure, too innocent to have done anything of the sort. Even Blast found herself questioning her own memory of the events.

Sunni watched on still, as the Powerpuff flew at Blast, attempting to make a grab for her; as they swooped in, Blast dodged out of the way, faster than lightning, only to bump smack into Sunni.

Before Blast knew what was happening, she had doubled over and was left gasping for breath, and then the Powerpuffs were on her, grabbing her arms and forcing her down to the sidewalk, where they held her backed up against a hydrant.

"What...what are you gonna..."

"We'll ask the questions", Blossom said, cutting Blast off, and poked Blast in the ribs, causing her to twitch. The puffs gave each other knowing glances, and Bubbles waved "thanks" up to Sunni, who flew off, planning her next move.

"Now...are you here alone?" Blossom asked, as Buttercup and Bubbles advanced on either side, hands out, poised and ready to tickle at a signal from their leader.

Blast glanced around nervously; no way was help coming to get her out of here; another image of Burst came to mind, lying on her bed, panting for breath, obviously having been let go by Brite, having gotten bored of tormenting her. She pled for help from her exhausted sister. Burst looked up when she received the distress message.

"Erm..." she said, stalling for time. "Yeah, I am. My sisters are at home."

"Sisters?" Buttercup asked. "How many of you are there?"

Blast wasn't going to answer, but a quick tickle from Bubbles put that to rights. Blossom had her tummy and one side covered; Buttercup, her other side. Bubbles reached down, and tickled the backs of Blast's knees through the thick denim of her jeans.

"Mmph...heh...ekkkkk!" Blast squeaked out, and would've fallen but for Blossom grabbing her at the last moment about the waist, squeezing her sides just a little two. Blast could feel her legs giving out as she tried to force Blossom's hands away, but Bubbles distracted her with more knee tickling.

"Oh g...okay okay okay, I'll ta-hahahahahahahahalk!" Blast gasped out though more squealing and giggling. The girls finally relented and let her speak.

"I have two sisters; Brite, I believe, you've already met". Blossom nodded curtly in response, before 'prodding' Blast for more info. "Ahhh!...and Burst is my other sister."

"More triplets?" Buttercup asked, incredulously. At that moment, a FWOP! sound was heard nearby, as the final triplet arrived at the location, and threw an energy ball that engulfed the Powerpuffs; not an ordinary ball though, as it contained tickling energy. As it surrounded the girls, they began to twitch and jerk, wriggle and giggle, as they tried to force their way out of it. Blossom bit her lip so hard to hold back a giggle, she drew blood, but it still didn't work; Their grip on Blast quickly faltered as they had a hard time controlling themselves. Blast easily pushed the ball, complete with girls, out of the way and rushed to give her sister a thank-you hug.

"Thanks, sis, I owe you one." Burst just grinned back affectionately.

"You owe me two", she said, and Blast looked mock-shocked. "Me saving you from THEM, and not saving me from our freak of a big sister."

"OK, so I owe you two," Blast agreed. "Shall we?" She said, holding her arm out. Burst linked arms with her and they teleported back home, to another double FWOP! sound.

"Heh...not...heh heh hehe...again...hee hee hee hee hee hee hee heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee..." Blossom squealed, as her defences crumbled yet again that long, long day.

Eventually, the energy ball dissipated. Sunni watched from a distance as they got up, brushed themselves off, and headed home to bed in silence, all to embarrassed to say anything to each other. It had been a VERY tiring day.


End file.
